Certain Trials
by BakaBlue
Summary: Due to some reason or another Touma Kamijou finds himself in England, unaware the problem that he needs to face is in the place he just left in Academy City.
1. Chapter 1

**I do not own Toaru Majutsu no Index or any other affiliated titles of there of.**

* * *

Touma Kamijou, a certain spikey haired level 0, could only watch in horror at what was before him. Sitting crossed legged in his student dormitory, cursing his misfortune, he could only whimper as his food storage was being erased from existence.

"Touma, still hungry, give me more" came the words of girl dressed as a nun, the words almost seemed to be mocking him yet without any evil intent.

Touma could only sigh in response as he recalled his hard spent effort facing the wrath of the crowds he went through in the bargain sale rush. The food supplies the he had purchased but a few hours ago had ceased to exist before his eyes. Raising the nun known as Index had once again crippled his hard thought out budget plans.

"Oi, Index-san, please show mercy at least until more money comes in"

"I am Touma, you'll notice that I'm only asking for one extra meal instead of the usual amount."

With the way this was looking so far, the boy of misfortune would soon have to surrender to the monster that was known as Poverty if this continued.

He needed to think of a way out of this mess but the small nun had appeared to seal the option to cut down food expenses,

Before he could think of any alternate routes his phone vibrated in his pocket, he left the room as to not having to hear the cries of hunger from the nun as he talked on the phone.

As he rose the phone to his head he braced himself for the probably bad news that was soon to follow, perhaps it was his homeroom teacher inviting him to join one of her joyous redeemable classes, maybe.

"Oi, Kamijou" came the familiar masculine voice across the speaker, sure enough it wasn't a voice that guaranteed that trouble was soon to follow over the horizon.

The voice belonged to the red-haired fire mage from the church of Necessarius, Styl.

"Hello, this is Kamijou Touma, how can this ordinary high school student help you today" The boy said, hoping he could pass the call as just a friendly greeting.

"Kamijou!" responded the phone speaker, perhaps a bit irritated. "Stop playing around, it's me Styl, you know that guy who almost burnt you to death a few times, but that's not important, what is important is that you and Index have been officially summoned to England "

"Eh, what?" the black haired boy furrowed his brow hoping for a little more details.

"You didn't get it? I said you and Index need to get yourselves here to England, there is a very important matter that only she can resolve and as her guardian you have to unfortunately have to come to."

"England? I have to go there? What's going on? Don't tell me it's some magic war again?"

Touma heard a light sigh over the phone, expecting to hear news of an incoming magical Armageddon he clenched his fist, listing intently to the phone, a brief silence before the reply came back that was slightly deadpan.

"Okay, Kamijou, this might be hard for you to understand so I'll explain it carefully, now pay attention, Index or Index Librorum Prohibitorum has a dentist appointment and is needs to be here for it"

"A dentist appointment" Touma repeated not sure if he had heard correctly. "Are you serious?"

"Correct," Styl spoke over the phone with no hint of sarcasm in his voice. "As you know she doesn't have proper identification to go to the fancy dentists where you are so hurry up and get to England already"

The spikey haired boy was almost unbelieving with the situation, they expected him and Index to travel across the world to meet a dentist in England, it wasn't like he didn't understand the importance of dental hygiene but this was a bit much.

"Listen Styl, if it's just that I hardly think it's worth all the-"

"Kamijou Touma, pay attention to my words" Styl was now heavily emphasizing each syllable of his words as if trying to convey a hidden meaning to his words. "She has to go to the dentist, if you get my meaning"

The last words were even my emphasized in a slightly louder voice. Touma fit the feeling that maybe it was maybe more important than he thought, maybe the phone line was bugged or something and they were probably using some code.

"Uhh, I see, fine, fine, we will go so hold on till we get there okay" the boy scratched his head, trying to see if there was maybe a hidden meaning behind his words, either way with the results as is it looked like a trip across the world seemed to be in his future.

"Good, I hoped you'd see it my way" came the reply. "Now according our the schedule, you can take a plane two days from now at the airport, it will be a one trip flight, don't you dare mess it up"

The wielder of Imagine Breaker immediately felt something was off about this though, .

"Just a second did you just give me a two day grace period, your not just going to abduct me as soon as I end the call right?"

"Abduct you? What kind of shady organization do you think we run here? You should be more grateful that you have some time prepare this time, then again I guess you could also say the situation is strenuous enough that you need to be prepared instead"

"Got to say, you make this dentist trip sound a lot more painful then it should be, and it sounded pretty painful in the first place"

"Whatever you say, just don't be late or their will be consequences"

The call was ended before any exchange of farewell could occur, the spikey hair boy put down his phone and waited five seconds, true enough no sneak attacks and abductions happened, although this should be a good thing to not be kidnapped, he placed one of his hands at the back of his head and re-entered his living room.

"Touma, who was that?" said the Index the nun who had a dentist appointment in a few days, she sat directly next to the bed playing with the cat known as Sphinx and didn't seem interested in spite of her question.

"Hey Index, how do you feel like taking a small trip in a few days?"

* * *

Misaka Mikoto also known as #3 The Railgun of the Level Fives, The Ace of Tokiwadai, The Electric Princess, 'that crazy bitch from Tokiwadai' and occasionally as Biri-Biri was coincidentally waiting be a certain infamous vending machine, or at least it was what she would tell people if they asked why she was acting so suspious, it was a coincidence, yes, by coincidence she just happened to by waiting by the vending machine, by coincidence she had been waiting there for over ten minutes now, by coincidence she had managed to get two drinks out of the vending machine by kicking it an extra time than usual.

'He is running late today' tea-colour haired girl thought to herself despite her the words she had prepared, lifting her head fidgeting every so often to check the area, still she would wait there for a few minutes more at lease.

* * *

The unfortunate high-school boy known as Touma Kamijou was not having a joyous day, even while leaving out his usual amount of bad luck like broken property, usual amount of things tripping his feet, miss placing of shoe lockers, his head was full of stress and dread.

The day had started well enough, he debated if he should go to school or not, somehow the feeling that he should be preparing for his trip in two days was quite persistent, the problem was that he had no idea how to prepare, should he bring a weapon, medical aid, rope? It was the one time the Anglican church gave him advance notice to prepare but why did it make it more stressful, he knew that he should be a bit more grateful that they didn't just throw him into a plane with nothing more than the clothes on his back considering their usual antics.

Since he was undecided on how to prepare he went to school hoping to ponder on how to prepare while in class, at least this way he could boost him attendance rate at least, perfect attendance was a hope shattered long ago but he could hopefully still scrape enough to graduate hopefully.

He was still deep in his thoughts as he walked home cutting through the park, not really aware of his surroundings like he was earlier today, not even the reprimanding shouts of Seiri Fukiyose or Komoe Tsukuyomi and occasional poke from Himegami Aisa earlier had managed to properly stir him awake. He continued walking through the park, perhaps he would go to his dorm and invite Index to go shopping and have her choose what they should bring on their journey to England, or maybe not, thinking about it in that case would cause him to only bring would an excessive amount of food.

He had almost reached the exit of the park when suddenly he felt a very sudden hard pain strike the back of his head.

"Hey! Don't ignore me!" came the female voice above his head as he doubled over, effectively bring him into the world of the awake.

He the noticed a metal can of "Coconut Cider" on the ground near him, apparently someone had thrown it at the back of his head and scored a perfect bulls-eye.

"Hnghh, that hurts" muttered the spikey haired high schoolar, rubbing the back of his head with his left hand as turning towards his assailant.

"Oh, it's just Biri-B-"

"It's MISAKA MIKOTO you idiot!" shouted the electomaster giving of a small ball of lightning as a friendly greeting. "You have a lot of nerve to ignore me like that!"

"Yes, yes," The boy casually lifted his right hand to void the electric shock and continued speaking as though nothing had happened. "My apologies Misaka-san, Kamijou will reflect on his actions sincerely"

Mikoto let out a sigh, her emotions always seemed to change on the fly whenever this guy was around, using the magnetism capabilities of her electric abilities she lifted the can of the coconut flavoured drink she had thrown earlier and threw it again towards the chest of the nearby boy albeit a lot more gently than before.

"Here," she said offering or rather forcing the drink on the guy. "I coincidently got a extra drink from the vending machine earlier and it be a shame to waste it"

The spikey haired boy expressed gratitude for the drink, not willing to cite that that attacking him with a can was justifiable for a for a reason like that and wished to incur any outburst .

"So Misaka, what do I owe the pleasure of meeting one esteemed level fives today?"

Mikoto hesitated on what to say next, she had called him out on reflex as usual, maybe she would say something generic of the wildcard excuse again of wanting a duel.

"You looked like you had some free time," keeping her voice as neutral as possible while trying to sound a bit ambiguous. "So I thought I could be merciful for today and let you keep me company for a while"

"So Misaka-san was feeling a bit lonely and wanted some company right?" the boy interpreted in prideful tone.

"What!? Don't be an idiot all of a sudden, Th-Thi-This is for your sake not mine! That's right! You should show some appreciation for my generosity, yeah, you should spend some time with me praising my name"

"Heh, hee, as much as I would love to take you up on that offer, it is unfortunate that Kamijou-san has already has plans right now and won't be able to make it"

"Eh?"

"I'm going on a trip in the near future and need to go and buy some things so that I can have a safe and enjoyable trip"

"I see," the girl sighed in disappointment but then a thought sprung up in her. "Wait, did you just say you were going on a trip? Don't tell me your in some kind of life-threating mess again aren't you?"

Touma couldn't help but feel a bit a sadness his friends idea of his version of a "trip" was somehow synonymous with "life-threating mess", but he figured it wasn't something he could altogether deny.

"No, no, Misaka there isn't any danger as far as I know, as far as I know it will be a peaceful uneventful trip"

Well it was a kind of half truth, he wasn't technically told of anything dangerous directly anyway.

"Is that so?"

Mikoto spoke with a disbelieving look on her face, appraising the boys every move to see any sign of deceit as Kamijou nodded his head.

"You said you were going to get something for your trip now right, since it's only that, how about letting me come along for a little bit since I have some free time?"

"Ummm"

"No objections right? Actually no, you don't get the option to reject!"

Forced with this unreasonable demand, any hope of the Imagine Breakers resistance had be erased.

Stuck with an unexpected party member he had no choice to go shopping, although it was true he was going to purchase supplies either way his choice of what to get had been more limited to the criteria of "I'm not going to war with this item" as to not tip off the girl to any danger.

* * *

"Wait, wait, no matter how I look at it this seems way to much for a simple trip, how long are you planning to be gone? What are you fleeing the country or something?"

"What are you talking about Biri-Biri, these are but a modest amount of food for about a day"

As much as Touma thought about it he wasn't able to think of any way to buy anything special to prepare for the trip with that gone he might as well at least get enough for to pacify Index for a day, two if he was lucky.

"Is this something you would normally buy before going somewhere, I mean wouldn't you normally take the chance to try their local food while your away"

"While that may be a choice, I am sorry to say my wallet is not able to keep up if I embraced the life of a rich ojou-sama, besides with you here I wasn't going to let up my chance to capitalize on those "one per person" discounts".'

"What kind of person do you think I am here?!"

"A kind and reliable friend, that Kamijou-san greatly appreciates that she had the time to spare to help such a misfortunate person"

Mikoto sighed, this person never failed to provoke her emotions, every feeling from anger to love, he played them as easily as breathing yet he never seemed to oblivious, she thought once or twice that this guy was doing it intentionally but dismissed it as overthinking things.

They decided to take a rest stop for now. The two sat on a bench by roadside near a crepe store.

Now that they had for the moment the girl took the chance to get her thoughts together, this boy who always seemed to be fighting some unknown enemy was leaving the city to go somewhere, she couldn't help but assume the worst considering it was this person.

"Can I ask you something seriously, your not in something troublesome are you?"

"Ugh, nope, nothing more than the usual for me"

Touma knew he might have to lie when it concerned the magic side, still he didn't want to misinform someone he trusted so for now he would stick to half truths for now.

"I see, where are you going anyway?"

The misfortunate boy considered if it really would be alright to tell her, but she was his friend and he didn't for know for sure any reason not to tell her.

"I'm going to England, you know the land of the Anglican church, the Queen, et cetera, nothing to concern yourself with."

"England, huh? Well I guess it's not the worst place you could go too"

"You have something against England?"

"A bit, it's nothing special though"

What Misaka didn't mention, that when England was brought to her mind, she couldn't help think about the last time someone mentioned that place to her, that someone was Kamijou Touma himself. During the last incident she heard of that guy in England, he had randomly called her on how to unlock a electronic gate like a special safe, it seemed weird at the time and as she got more information about it the weirder it became, after that, a bunch of incidents happened and as the result Kamijou Touma was reported dead. Back then she thought that phone call was the last time she had heard his voice. True the report was now proven false but those reminder of those uneasy feelings were still there from that time.

* * *

The door opened to reveal the male resident of the room as Kamijou Touma made it back to his apartment.

"I'm back"

"Welcome back, Touma" said the white nun Index, she turned to greet him and returned to watching the television, a calico cat resting on her lap.

"Before I get dinner started, did you watch the news earlier like I asked?"

"The news didn't report anything on England, but aren't you being a bit too paranoid about this, I even phoned the church earlier and didn't hear anything out of ordinary."

"Too paranoid? You don't find anything wrong with asking us to leave the continent for a dental appointment"

"Nope, since it must just be that it's just a really good dentist, besides they would have told me if anything was wrong somehow, even if the their was something wrong with the science way, they are still several hundred ways to communicate with magic "

"Really? Can you say with 100% certainty that nothing could have happen"

"Hmmm" Index closed her eyes and thought for a bit. "I can't say one hundred percent sure but I can guarantee about ninety-nine percent."

"99%? What about the leftover 1%?"

"It impossible to get the full hundred since there might be unknown factors like stuff we don't know about, but the odds of getting something pass my grimoire library is almost zero"

"Heh heh, Index," the spikey haired boy said in a prideful tone. "Don't underestimate my misfortune, whether it is 100%, uh, 99% or even less than 1%, in the face of my bad luck that even broken mirrors envy it might as well be 100%."

"Touma, that isn't something to be prideful over, but if your so sure of it how about we have a small bet"

"Go on"

"Let's see...If nothing happens in England I want...oh, 3 extra meals everyday for a week and if you win...uh, then you only have to give me 2 extra meals everyday, deal?"

"No , definitely not, if I accept that then no matter what happens it's my loss, how does feeding you and extra 2 times satisfy me in anyway?"

"Fine, then what do want?"

Kamijou wondered what he could ask of her, making her clean or cook would be suicidal.

"How about we go with the classic do whatever the winner says for a day? Even if I can't think of anything I want you to do now I can worry about it later."

"So I just have to cram the extra 21 meals in a day, shouldn't be a problem, I could even do more probably. Alright Touma it's a bet"

* * *

Soon the time to depart had come, Touma Kamijou decided to pass up on bringing any extra items and stick to arming himself with just his fists, he reasoned that even if he brought something the plane security coupled with his bad luck would result in his bag being checked and he would have probably missed his flight. Up to the very end the extra preparation time had only given him unnecessary extra stress.

Touma had received him plane tickets in the mail, and to his surprise there instead of the super-sonic flight he had been expecting and dreading, he had received two business class tickets to England. Perhaps they were wary what had happened the last time they tried to ship him via super-sonic, in that incident which involved buying different tickets and a terrorist attack.

The boarding off the plane went without incident or at least no incident that was really worth mentioning if you take in consideration the high-schooler's LUC stat was set at "Such Misfortune".

After setting the alarm a few times and Index and Touma having to change clothes to satisfy the unmerciful metal detector did they safely board the plane. The small nun of course grabbed a window seat leaving Kamijou to sit beside her.

* * *

It wasn't until the plane was in the air did something happen, the flight attendant explained the usual regulations and "moving around freely" was permitted.

Suddenly as Kamijou Touma was about to relax, his vision suddenly went black and he felt someone at the back of his neck.

"Guess who?" came a cheerful greeting.

'Please don't let it be a terrorist!' was the boy's first thought.

The boy slowly moved the hands that covering his eyes away from his face and turned around. It was not someone he expected to be there, then again if you could consider all the possibilities, this person was more likely to appear than a run of the mill character. It appeared that this person had arrived from the first class area to greet him.

"Biri-Biri! what? How? What are you doing here?"

The Ace of Tokiwadai put one of her fingers to her chin.

"Well, why do you think I'm here?"

Touma crossed his arms and thought, there were several different scenarios that came to his mind, but the most prominent one was...

"Your stalking me aren't you?"

For a second, Misaka's conscious seemed to have stopped and her face turned red.

"Idiot! W-wh-why would you think that! I mean, I just came b-because I was worried about you! I mean- I mean it's perfectly normal for a friends to worry about each other right! Especially a friend that ends up in life and death situations as soon as I take my eyes off him, that's right, so...I'm here"

"Hmmmm," the boy frowned but got the gist of it. "So Biri-Biri was worried about me eh?"

"Oh course, there is nothing wrong with that, is there?" snapped the Railgun.

"No, there is nothing wrong with worrying about a friend, but why would you worry, it's not like I told you that I'm going to do something dangerous right?"

"Why would I worry? It's you were talking about. Your leaving the city, that's enough to get me worried, every time you go somewhere I don't know about, the next I hear about you is that you almost died trying your hardest to save someone ."

Touma was astounded that he gave that kind of impression to her, but now that he thought about it he couldn't come up with an answer that would disprove that impression.

"Err, I can't argue when you put it like that but is it really okay for the one of the level fives to suddenly take off like that."

"It's fine, I handled it, it's not like my position is an official job and it's no problem if I skip school for a few days, I also have someone covering for me if something shows up"

The level 0 had to admire here determination, he didn't think he would be able to turn her down and it wasn't just because the were in mid-flight.

"Short-Hair, how did you even find us in the first place?" interrupted Index who was watching from earlier and had not decided to be amused or annoyed.

"I simply hacked the information from the airport, it's pretty simple with my power, then I just bought a ticket"

"Oh that sounds neat," then the walking library turned to Touma. "What does "hack" mean?"

"It means something like she stole the data from somewhere"

"Wah, stole? isn't that illegal?"

"Well Index-san, it is no more illegal than hiding foreigners in your apartment when they don't have a full proper ID"

"Oh, so I guess that makes it okay then."

The misfortunate boy shrugged a "yes, I suppose" in response.

The electromaster grinned with the matter settled, in return the boy began to marvel at the power that being an ojou-sama could bring.

"Now with all said and done, the fact is I'm stuck on this plane with you, I'll even follow you if you decide to jump out of the plane this instant, I am involved since you can't get rid of me and you have nothing to gain by trying to trick me, so you might as well honestly tell me what's going on."

Imagine Breaker put up his hands in a sign of surrender, it was logical but it was hard to find a place to start, especially since the story wasn't as built up as the level 5 believed it to be.

"How do I put this, would you believe me if I told you were just on the way for a dentist appointment?"

The girl stared at him with face that clearly showed her answer.

"Okay then, right, can't blame you, I wouldn't believe me either"

Touma put his hand to his head, struggling to come up with a answer that would make the truth believable, he considered telling her about his suspicions about journey's hidden agenda, but without any big evidence but the feeling in his gut. Kamijou kneaded his head to come up with a reason that wouldn't cause him to get electrocuted.

"Short Hair! I know this is unusual for Touma but it's true were going to a English dentist, I thought it was weird too so I even contacted the church to make sure, even though using the phone was hard"

"Hmmmm"

The level 0 was grateful to his saviour Index, with her backup he could persuade the electromaster to possibly spare him.

"But I know what you mean," the nun continued. "Touma always do this and that without telling me anything, like just a few weeks ago he did that thing, then he was with some girl, he didn't tell me anything and then he left me without food..."

It appeared that his saviour was losing track of the discussion, if this kept up a familiar feeling of being bitten was going to be added to his problems.

Mikoto turned her attention back to the high-school boy, ignoring Index when she started mumbling to herself about how hungry Touma had left her.

Figuring it would be bad to let the girl come to her own thoughts about the situation and blow the scale way out of proportion, Touma persisted to explain in rushed details.

In response, the Electromaster took a deep breath and tried to summarise the whole thing.

"So let me get this straight", she folded her arms over her chest and looked straight at the boys face.

"So you mean to tell me, you, no, we skipped school, boarded a plane and are currently flying to England so this Silver Sister can go to the dentist?"

"Yes"

"Are you serious?"

"Yes"

"There isn't some enemy or organisation that your going to stop?"

"Yes"

"Ergh," the girl let out a deep breath. "Your going to England for a reason like that, that's stupid and what's even stupider is that I look like an idiot for following for a reason like that"

"Yes"

"Don't agree with me you idiot! Do you want to be electrocuted!?"

"Misaka-san please remember that the plane rules asked to keep electric devices off, all I've told you are just the facts as I know it"

The level 0 lifted up his right hand, partly just in case a shock came his way and partly making a gesture signalling the electromaster that there was more to it to than just the facts.

"While this didn't seem odd to Index, but don't you think that something is weird about the whole "summoning to England for dentist thing"?"

"You think so?" replied the middle school girl, the words dripping with sarcasm yet anticipation.

"Lets say hypothetically that the magic side-"

Before he could continue the misfortunate boy felt a pain strike the back of his head, Index apparently wanted to get his attention.

"Touma, before you explain your theories to Short-Hair, my biological clock says it's time to eat and the lunch trolley isn't here yet"

* * *

The flight had safely reached the designation of England, though the mood seem to be at a low despite this. Emerging from the plane emerged a severely bitten Kamijou Touma, a slightly put off Misaka Mikoto and a still hungry Index.

Touma rubbed his wounds, while he was lucky enough that Biri-Biri was considerate enough to fathom that releasing electricity in a crowded plane was a bad idea, the same didn't apply to Index's biting, whether the gnawing of his head was meant as a punishment or whether Index was hungry enough to reach the level of a cannibal could be either case.

Greeting him from his flight at the gateway was the Amukasa Saint and once Fallen-Angel-Ero-Maid Kanzaki Koari and the fire mage that looked older than he appeared Styl Magnus, it wasn't particularly hard to find them, their outfits did not do subtly.

After purchasing a meal to go for Index and entering a somewhat suspicious vehicle that Touma felt it safe to question the magicians.

"Once again, thank you for coming Kamijou Touma," began the Saint who sitting across from him, the group had entered the vehicle which had two rows of seats at the back. Incidentally the seating arrangement was Kanzaki and Styl in the first row while in the back row Touma had Index on his left and Misaka on his right.

"Yeah no problem, but could you please tell explain the whole situation to me now it should be safe right?"

"Do you mean Styl didn't tell you?" The swordsman Saint, raised one of her eyebrows ad gestured to the red-haired man sitting next to her who just shrugged in response.

"He told me to run off around the world just because of a dentist appointment, I mean that's not all there is right?"

The swordswoman stared at the fire-user.

"I told him that it was a dentist appointment, nothing more and nothing less, it's not my fault if the idiot here misunderstands."

"So...so..your actually telling me that it is just a dentist appointment," the misfortunate boy did a breath take. "There is no hidden agenda and you made me cross the world just for this".

"Correct."

Touma started making sounds that could either be a hollow laugh or weird sounding sobs.

"Aargh, I can't believe this," the electric esper could be heard mumbling to herself. "To think I was actually worried about this idiot."

Even though her voice was low, everybody could clearly hear her, Styl in response pulled out a cigarette from his pocket and drew it to his face.

"Whether you believe it or not, it actually is justifiable, do you really think we would let those academy crackpots near our precious forbidden grimoire library?"

"Forbidden grimoire library?"

"It's the-.. wait! Why are you even here if you don't even know that much? Actually I don't recall ever seeing you before today, who are you anyway and what exactly do you want?"

Somehow it felt like the question should have been asked earlier, at least before they entered this vehicle together at minimum.

"What? Now you question why and who I am? I've been here the whole time!"

Feeling the need the brown-haired girl before she gathered momentum, Index cleared her throat to remind everyone that she was still here.

"Don't worry Styl, this is Short-Hair, I don't know why she is still here, but she is a friend, oh and she is apparently an esper also"

"My name is MISAKA MIKOTO! It is not Short-Hair and it is not Biri-Biri! It's Misaka got it?"

"Alright, Misa-eh-esper girl," Styl appeared indifferent as lit his cigarette. "You'll have to forgive me, Kamijou always has girls around him, so I just figured that you were something like his accessory or something to that affect"

"Why you-!"

* * *

"So Imagine Breaker is not in the city right now," said a robed figure, his presence hidden by a special spiritual item. "Such a pity, I wanted at least some risk for the job."

A group of four people had infiltrated Academy City, each wearing specialized cloaks to help hide their identities.

"Why would you want to make our job harder than it already is?" said the second figure. "This whole idea is so troublesome already"

"Ahem, for now let's do recon for now, we will sortie and meet up at the arranged co-ordinates at 16h00, agreed"

"Fair enough, lets get started"

The four of them split up, they all understood what they had come to do in the city of espers.


	2. Chapter 2

The car had finally come to a stop in front of a large chapel, impressive as the building the was only one to greet the arriving party was the head of the Anglican Church faction, , Archbishop Laura Stuart. With a young looking face and blond hair with overly long hair not many people would recognize her for who she was, this included Mikoto who eyed the woman suspiously.

"Hello, welcome to England" the girl spoke in a sing-song voice. "Thank you for accepting our invitation to come to our corner of the globe."

She looked at each person in turn, starting with Index.

"It hasn't been long since we last met each other Index Librorum Prohibitorum , you might not remember me since our last meeting was quite eventful but it nice to have you back again, you might not recall this but we used to be friends, so lets get along again shall we."

Next was Touma.

"Greetings, I'm Laura Stuart, you must be the Imagine Breaker, Kamijou Touma himself, we also met briefly before and I must thank you for taking care of Index for us and I hope you can look after us in the future as well."

Then on to the next person, the unexpected guest.

"And you must be-"

"Misaka Mikoto," the girl answered quickly, she didn't want to give this person the chance to associate her with a weird nickname that certain people had given her.

The Archbishop than thank the two magicians for escorting the party safely to the church. Kanzaki bowed in response, however the fire user looked a bit off for some reason.

"Styl, you look a little...crispy"

"It's no problem," the rune red-haired mage let off a puff of smoke from his mouth. "The esper girl just helped me light my cigarette".

"Oh, is that right?" and the woman turned back to the main company. "Anyway people I'm sure you must be tired and jet-lagged from your journey, so I suggest that you rest up a bit, Kanzaki and Styl can show you to the rooms prepared for you, your luggage has already been moved, and we can hold the rest of our discussion for later"

"Err, Archbishop-san," Touma raised his hand for attention. "If it's okay with you, the flight wasn't that big of a deal that we need to rest, so if it's possible could we perhaps finish today's business so we can get back home?"

"I'm sorry Touma-san" the blond woman bowed her head. "I'm afraid that is not currently possible so I have to insist, besides we don't often receive guests so we can't miss this chance to demonstrate the revered Anglican Magicians' hospitality."

And with that the head of the church quickly left before anyone could respond.

"Touma, Touma," the spikey haired boy felt a tugging on his arm by the small nun. "I want to tour the kitchens again!"

"Well that was fast" the boy shrugged.

"Kamijou Touma, I would like to volunteer to show Index around," said Saint Swordsman Kanzaki Koari. "You don't need to worry I will take good care of her"

Without waiting for a response Index was whisked away happily by the Saint, commenting at how glad the chefs would be to see Index's return.

"What? So I'm the one stuck having to lead you along" the fire mage frowned at Touma. "Looks like my luck isn't that great either"

* * *

It started a possible coincidence, but at this rate Anti-Skill was going to have to be involved soon.

At Tokiwadai middle school, Shokuhou Misaki was annoyed as she sipped some tea layed out before her, ranked 5th of the Level Fives, labelled as the Queen of Tokiwadai and Mental Out, the blond, buxom, starry-eyed girl wasn't content at the situation.

Reports across Academy City citied that several people had gone missing with no trace of their whereabouts, speculation led to a mass kidnapping by an unknown esper group.

Normally this wouldn't be a problem, this girl who boasted being the city's most powerful telepath, renowned for her mind-manipulation abilities, she would normally be above a problem like this if it wasn't for one fact.

Several of her drones, eh, followers were among the missing. The girl had noticed it happening slowly, she sensed some of the people's presence vanishing from her mind, those people who she directed with simple orders, their slight presence of their consciousness seemed to disappear without warning.

As the leader of the largest school girl clique, losing one or two of them could unlikely be considered coincidence, but the amount had grown into the double digits right now, this would have to be remedied soon, after all this could be considered an attack against the one known as Mental Out. Then there was that, the worse thing yet, the latest person had been the one Misaki had entrusted with an important shopping errand in the School Gardens had disappeared, now with her gone, the Queen was forced to drink her tea without any cake, this was unforgivable.

* * *

Styl lead the two people through the building, quietly muttering out his frustrations, perhaps he was being jealous that he was not the one guiding Index through the place.

"So Styl," Kamijou said nonchalantly as they walked a. "Since I'm stuck here anyway, do you mind if I say hello to some friends of mine since if there here, can you tell me where the Amakusa group are?"

"Other than Kanzaki, the Amakusa sect are out of the country for the time being," the taller boy sounded annoyed. "But if you insist on meeting them, they will be arriving here in three to five days"

"Oh, can't be helped then. What about Agnese's group?"

"They are also are a mission pertaining to an out of country location, you can meet them in two days if your still here"

"Not here then. Is there anybody around that I know?"

"Hmmm," Styl brow furrowed. "Well there is that code breaker, Orsola Aquinas, I believe, she should be in one of the libraries"

"Sure, okay thanks, I'll be sure to see her sometime during this trip then"

"It's no problem if you want to meet her...but Kamijou did you notice? Your esper girl seems to have a bit of static electricity, is that normal?"

"Ah," Touma turned toward the girl in question, suffice to say she showed a bit more than just a bit of static electricity.

"Misaka what's wrong? Why are you getting all biri-biri?"

"Nothings wrong, moron" the girl spoke with a forced looking smile and tone. "I was just wondering about those people you mentioned, they wouldn't be happen to be girls would they?"

"Uh, no, not all girls, just most of them are girls I guess, but why does that matter?"

"Yes, I see," Mikoto muttered to herself. "I know.. I get it"

"Biri-Biri, what do you mean?"

The answer was incoming strike of lightning which Touma managed to block with his right hand.

"Misaka? What was that for?!"

"Quiet you! Think of it as punishment for going around saving girls and probably endangering yourself without telling me anything! What if something happened and I didn't know anything about it?"

"Wait that's not fair!" the boy flailing his arms about but ready to negate if another bolt came at him. "Most of these things happened at the spur of the moment I didn't have time to tell anyone, I just happened to be caught up in various circumstances and went with flow of the moment"

"Yeah I know," the electromaster forced herself to calm down. "I know what kind of person you are, I'm just frustrated, okay? You just go and meet all these girls and each time I... rrgh, never mind. I'm sorry, it's just that I think you should rely on me more, after all you told me that I could rely on you, that's not a one way thing you know."

A clapping sound reverberated through the area, Styl drew the attention of the two Academy City residents.

"I hate to interrupt you but were your room is right over there you know" the magician pointed to a door two rooms away.

"It really isn't all that grand" Styl continued while opening the room with a key. "But compared to where you live Kamijou, it might as well be a palace"

True to the magicians words, the room wouldn't be called luxurious if compared to one of those high-class hotel for the rich only, but the quality was still impressive, not only did it outsize his apartment room, it had a double bed, a couch, a quality television, an air conditioner and various other things, the only thing that his school dorm room had better was a that it had a kotetsu.

"I guess this goes with out saying at this point, but your expecting me to stay the night here, right" Touma asked while eyeing the bed suspiously.

"I'm glad you noticed," The magician threw the room key towards the unfortunate boy. "The rules are quite strict so the church is still going doing the final checks on the dentists background, we can't allow a traitor after all. Anyway, this is your room, you even get room service if you use that phone in the corner, your luggage is in the other corner..."

The fire mage gave the room the abridged verbal tour, only pausing to let out a puff of smoke off his cigarette.

"And with that my job is done, I'll be leaving now, anything you need is room service's problem now got it?"

With that, the mage turned to leave the room, only to notice a certain someone blocking his path, his sighed in annoyance.

"Problem, Esper Girl?" not bothering to hide the sarcasm from his voice.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Misaka Mikoto asked, her eyes glaring. "You still have to show me too a room too don't you?"

"Your an uninvited guest," Styl said matter-of-factly. "We don't have any available rooms prepared and I really don't have the time to get a new room ready for you, as far as I am concerned since Kamijou brought you here you are his problem so you might as well stay with him. You could always leave you know, no one said that you had to stay here, as long as Imagine Breaker remains here, it doesn't matter if your here or not"

"Hmmph, you don't really think I can just leave this idiot after following him to England and leave him in this su pious ordeal do you? Also are you telling me in this whole building you can't find a spare room for me?"

"Nope, not at all" the rune magician muttered, after all his common sense told him it would be a bad idea to throw some random esper in a vacant unprepared room in the headquarters of Necessarius.

"There shouldn't be a problem here anyway, just share the room, by luck you just happen to have a double bed anyway"

"Eh? You don't mean you expect me to sleep in the same bed as that person do you? I can't do that!"

"Ah, Biri-Biri," Touma interjected hoping quell the girl's anger before it got out of hand. "If it bothers you that much you can have the bed to yourself and Index, I can always just sleep in the bathtub again after all"

"You people," The magician's annoyance was peaking. "If the bed thing annoys you that much, just call room service and ask for a fuuton or something, there is still the couch too if nothing else unless your the kind that likes sleeping in the bathroom."

"Next, I forgot to mention this earlier but Index will be staying in the woman's dorms with Kanzaki Koari tonight for security reasons"

"Oh, did you say Index won't be sleeping here tonight?"

"Correct, that won't be a problem will it?"

* * *

This was tiresome, the level 5 known as Mental Out was analysing the data again. With a wide range of followers, gathering most information wasn't a problem, she would receive updates from various factions whether it was either from Anti-Skill, Judgement and even, more importantly Academy City's darkside.

She had a record of the levels, areas and frequencies of the victims. Checking the background of them, a high percentage of the disappearances happened to be female but other than that it was hard to pin a common connection between them, their families, levels, relationships, doctors. Were the kidnappers attacking randomly?

The locations, they were happing all over the city, however a few areas seemed to be more frequent than the others, judging from the reports the most targeted areas were triangulated around the School Gardens, the place maintained by some of the top schools in the city, a place limited to girls, it would explain the high female rate though. There wasn't any signs of struggle other than one or two exceptions, was the method of kidnapping that effective or had the people disappeared willingly?

Who could have the proper technology to effectively use the victims while considering the risks, people notice if someone precious to them mysteriously disappeared, were they not worried about the consequences, high enough up the ladder that the consequences no longer applied to them, faith enough that they would not be caught, blind stupidity or something else unknown?

But even more pressing was determining the groups goal. What would anyone do with a bunch of espers? Well the possibilities to that question were limitless, the next restriction would have to been then who could effectively capture all these people while evading Academy City Surveillance. The number was aslo astoundingly high but much less so than before.

"If I were the person who successfully had a bunch of espers where over 90% were females, not worried about any finance or moral implications, what would I do?"

The answer that occurred first to the girl was to brainwash them to her own personal slave army the would unquestionably be ready to die for their queen without hesitation. They could also be used for resources, test subjects to the whims of their captures, forced to take on anything from experimental machines. drugs or even the desires of a common pervert.

Thoughts of many different factions came to mind, the darkness of the city, perhaps a small group in Judgement or Anti-Skill gone rouge, foreigners trying to steal technology, hormone driven members of Skill-Out. Some were more likely than others but the possibility of it being even the most minor person could not be altogether eliminated.

This speculation wasn't good, going on this thought train would bring the girl to suspect everyone if she began considering all the possibilities. She needed to cut off some branches and there was only one way to do that right now, she would have to capture a member of the kidnappers and read their mind until it breaks. It was time to plan an ambush.

* * *

The atmosphere was awkward at least from Mikoto's perspective, alone together, in a foreign country, forced to share a room, unsupervised, she could not help and fantasize of the implications as she stared at the boy who was completely oblivious to her inner turmoil.

The boy in question, Touma was sitting over by a nearby desk, apparently mulling over homework he had brought over from Academy City, he figured he might as well do it now since he had nothing better to do, the only alternative was watching the television but that was unfortunately unsatisfying since he couldn't understand the language when he tried earlier.

"Hey, are you finished with that thing yet?" Misaka attempted to start a conversation to relax the atmosphere. "If you are can you talk to me for a bit, I am kind of bored here."

"Sorry, Biri-Biri, but since Kamijou-san skipped out on school despite his already low attendance to come here, he needs to finish this amount of work to make up for it."

"Hmmmph, fine, what are you studying anyway? Looks hard from the way your concentrating over there"

"Basic high school stuff, you know, this and that."

"This and that?" The girl walked up to the desk to take a peak, she was curious and considering she would be in highschool in the following year.

"Let's see, eh, so that's the infamous this and that? What, that's all, I thought it was harder by the way your going on about it."

"Are you saying that this isn't difficult for you, you Tokiwadai Middle Schoolgirl?"

"Difficult?" the younger girl sneered. "This is so elementary it is not even worth ranking"

"Ah, once again, this Kamijou-san has seen that road to education is light-years beyond what he knew" The boy sighed.

"Come on, your exaggerating, it doesn't take long to figure how to do this anyway, I can even tutor you if you want."

"Tutor me?"

"Yep, your not ashamed to be tutored be a middle-school girl are you?"

The boy clasped his hands as a sign of begging.

"Not at all, Kamijou can only express gratitude that Tokiwadai's Ace-sensei herself is taking the time to tutor this unfortunate boy."

"Well, when your asking me I can't really refuse can I? Pass your work here, watch me do a few and then figure it out from there"

The girl quickly took the paper, and within a few minutes after handed it back.

"There you see, it's easy, now try the rest by yourself" The girl said with a satisfied smirk and handed the paper over.

"As expected from Misaka-sensei," The high school student as he looked over her work. "But you seem to have finished them all yourself"

"Hmmm, oh, your right, must have got carried away, well in that case, since your done, how about talking to me for a while, there are some things I want to ask you about this whole magic side thing."

"The magic side huh," Kamijou scratched the back of his head thinking this might take awhile. "Sure, just let me order some food from room service first, do you want anything?"

"Just ask them to send over what's recommended for me, thanks"

Touma rang up room service and placed an order food, it seemed it would take a while since they needed to get new stock but should arrive eventually.

"Fine so what do you want to talk about anyway?" The boy sat down on the floor across from the level five.

"Ummm, Let's see" The girl struggled to find a suitable place to start. "How about this whole magic side thing, how did you get involved in this whole thing anyway?"

"Ahh, that, to be honest you remember my whole missing memory problem right? So I'm actually afraid I don't know myself, I just woke up one day and found myself living with Ind...in..in this weird situation"

"Oh, your memory loss, right" Misaka muttered, wondering if she hit a sore spot.

"Since then, I've always been in some strange situations and meeting unique people".

"Can I be blunt with you and ask you something weird?" There was something the girl wanted to know every time the boy's memory loss problem came up. "How much do you remember? I mean, I'm sorry, I'm rude but when did you memories cut off?"

The spikey haired boy closed his eyes and scratched his head as he tried to bring up the memories.

"Ahh, I don't remember clearly but I can't remember anything clearly since around the about the end of July"

"July? Then... you should remember when you helped my SISTERS still, right?"

"Yeah, I remember that, back then I fought Accelerator at the end"

"Do you remember anything before that? Like all the duels we had or that graviton incident in the mall?"

The girl wondered how much memory was removed, were the whole incidents removed or did the hopefully leave some vague impressions.

"I can remember duelling you a lot but I don't recall anything about any graviton incident."

"How about...how about the time we first met, do you remember that?"

The girl asked with baited breath, but she had a she had a gut feeling how the answer would be.

"When we first met? No I don't remember that"

"I see"

"I'm sorry"

"No, it's not your fault, I doubt you would deliberately erase your memories like that." the Railgun looked down avoiding the boys eyes. "I know you probably considered this before but is their any chance your old memories will come back?"

"Unfortunately not, I don't know exactly what happened but according to the doctor, my memories where destroyed not repressed so I don't think it's possible for my memories to come back. "

"Not possible, not even with, say, a strong telepath?"

"Nope, as far as I know nothing on either magic or science can do anything about it. Yeah, I know how you must feel, But it's something I and the person who I was would not want people to worry over, what makes me the person I am is my heart right, so as long as I still carry those feelings I'm still that person."

"But that's just feelings right, do you think that what really defines a person?"

"I think it differs from person to person, I'm not sure how someone else would feel about it, but for this misfortunate boy who just wants to help people who are in trouble, my feelings are enough, right?"

"But aren't you curious, what if you had a sick relative or a girlfriend or something"

"Well, it's not like I can say I don't care who I was or I don't want to know about the people I cared for, it's just... really awkward you know."

The atmosphere in the room felt that awkwardness too.

"..."

"You really are an idiot aren't you?"

"Yes, that's what people keep telling me."

The girl knew that this person was avoiding the probable ramifications of the ordeal, hoping to ignore the negative aspects in order to put a smile on peoples' faces, anyway it wasn't her place to force it on to him."

"While were on this topic anyhow, Misaka, you knew me before right? Do you mind telling me how I was like before?"

The girl nodded wondering how this long conversation had long lost her original topic.

"Well to start off with, the first time we met, out of nowhere, without warning or introducing yourself, you grabbed my hand and tried to drag me away"

"What? Really? Was I the kind of person who did things like that?!"

"Hehe, relax, relax, I'm only kidding...now what really happened was..."

* * *

One can never underestimate the power of preparation, this was the logic that Mental Out was following. Now that she had a general area she could send out surveillance teams through the area, all while she had the comfort observing from her own room.

Several groups of four or five people patrolled School Garden, each one had a esper with a sensor type ability, such as enhanced sight or vision. The level five also had her own personal abilities to establish telepathic communication while she directly controlled someone of each group.

She needed to find a connection between all the kidnappings, a clue as too how they did it to escape Anti-Skill and Judgement. Considering the implication that the city held several thousands people with unique abilities this was quite a hurdle, they could be using a single method or several groups using several different abilities.

Her groups consisted mostly of middle school girls for blending in and not to cause to much attention, she also had a group from Judgement and Anti-Skill respectively.

Cameras in the alleyways, security robots deployed disguised as trash robots, various surveillance equipment, these were deployed too, not that she expected much from them, disabling things like that was basic for any kidnapper in this city.

The presumed locations of the kidnappings, they were inspected for any abnormalities anything for any common feature, aside for a few area that had a miniscule of blood there wasn't much to go on.

If she didn't find anything, outside one of the enemies group making a screw up, sacrificing someone as bait seemed plausible. She could send someone innocent-looking covered in devices that transmitted information, but then if it was discovered the kidnappers could take an advantage of that to set up a trap.

But all these very orthodox methods, something that anybody could predict and sabotage ahead of time, what was needed was something inconspicuous or something ridiculously effective to gather information.

That was why Misaki had made preparations for another surveillance system something that only she could properly organise. That day Mental Out ordered for several thousands of cats to be transported into the area.

In her vast amount of followers Shokuhou Misaki, had a new recruit, her power, the ability to communicate with cats, well the more technical term was "pick up fragments of its qualia". As useless as this power may seem alone, it would make a good hidden surveillance if used correctly, not to mention cats had heightened senses compared to the average human. True, it was useless on a certain person whose electric powers repelled cats and she herself could not control animals directly but almost nobody would suspect a cat to be used to observe them,.

* * *

"Touma, and after that she showed me a machine that if you feed clothes into it goes round and round and then the clothes would be clean"

Index was happily eating away, while describing her tour with Kanzaki Koari as she sat in the room provided for the misfortunate boy. The room was now occupied by four people with the arrival of the Saint Priestess and the Extreme Omnivore Nun.

"A machine that cleans clothes? That would be a washing machine right?"

"Yeah, that's right, a washing machine. Touma, why don't we have a washing machine?"

"Well the price is beyond me right now so maybe next time okay?"

"Argh, that's always your excuse."

The various assortment of meats and vegetables were disappearing, at first it wasn't a problem as they had probably be given to much food, but thankfully with the arrival of a certain nun the problem was resolved effectively, a bit too effectively maybe.

"Shall I retrieve more food," Kanzaki asked.

"Nah, it's fine, any more and it would be gluttony, as a servant of God I will show restraint to the temptation" the nun replied between mouthfuls.

As Mikoto watched dumbfounded, surely at this point gluttony had long since been surpassed, she was speechless as the figure continued to consume yet didn't seem to gain any weight.

"Short Hair, are you going to finish that?"

"Err, yeah, actually I..."

Index reached over and grabbed the plate. Is this supposed to be an endearing character trait or something?

"Ahem, anyway back to business, Kamijou Touma," said the Saint Swordsman Kanzaki Koari. " Like I said earlier for the duration of your stay, I will temporary take over as Index's guardian"

"Okay. But how long do I have to stay here anyway?"

"It was unfortunate, but I was informed something came up while checking the dentist's background, as a result we have revaluate another candidate and the appointment is delayed for a few days"

"So I'm still stuck here? Such misfortune!"

"My apologies, but there is a positive side, the church will take care of all your living expenses, you have free reign to visit many of England's landmarks, I'll even personally give you a tour myself."

"Well, thanks, it's just that Komoe-sensei is going to kill me for skipping school again"

"I see, but if it makes you feel better I am actually quite grateful that you'll be staying a bit longer myself. It's just that I hardly ever get the opportunity to spend much time with you or Index as I'd like"

"Yeah, I can see that happening, national borders and all. I'm sure Index is happy to spend time with you too and...wait, me too? "

"Yes, you too. Is that strange?"

"No, it's just unexpected"

"Touma, don't put words into other peoples mouths even if it's true" interjected the now post-meal Index. "By the way, why is Short-Hair still here, she has nothing to do here now right, so shouldn't she be going back home?"

"It's unfortunate, but I'll be sticking around here a little longer" the Railgun joined in. "I have already informed the city I wouldn't be back for a while so I have nowhere else to go, so I have no choice but to take advantage of the church's hospitality for a while. Sorry, but you won't be able to get rid of me that easily."

"Hmmm, so where are you going to be staying anyway, a room in the nunnery I suppose?"

"I'll be staying right here" the girl smirked while pointing her thumb over her shoulder to a fuuton in the corner that had been set out earlier.

"Oh, but if you sleep here where is Touma going to sleep then?"

"Beats me, I kicked him out, so outside in the cold I bet."

"Hang on! Isn't this supposed to be my room, I thought we agreed to share the room for the night"

"Hmm, was that how it went?"

"Yes! You even said it was okay and everything!"

The Imagine Breaker then heard a low growl, similar to an angry predator, was it a bear, were there bears in Necessarius? Nope, it came from Index...obviously.

"TOUMA! What's this? Don't you see anything wrong with sharing a room with some strange girl!?"

"Index-san, I know this may seem weird" the boy muttered while painfully avoiding the irony in the nun's statement. "But please calm down and...owww."

Index chomped down on the boy's spikey hair, her incisors gnawing against his skull, why did she even need to go to a dentist with teeth like that?

"Index! Why am I desert? Surely you can order some not Kamijou flavoured food!"

"Shut up! You taste awful to me too, but you need punishment!"

The esper and the saint watched the two flail about with a slightly bemused expression and waited for the post meal entertainment to end.

"When I asked Styl earlier why you were not going to stay with me he said it was against the rules and that if you stayed there you would turn the nunnery into your own personal brothel, but if I knew this would happen I would have argued a bit more. By the way, Touma, what does brothel mean?"

"Err, it means..." the Touma struggled to find the right words to the situation. "Uh, I don't know either, you shouldn't take Styl's jokes to seriously though, sometimes he takes them to far"

It was a long time before Touma could persuade Index to leave for the night.

* * *

The Railgun was in the bathroom after finishing a quick shower, part of her was sure that Kamijou wouldn't peek on her and another part was telling her to be wary of the boy's bad luck. She had made sure she had locked the door but you never know. Looking herself in the mirror she felt something off, it felt nostalgic and yet it was completely different, ah, it was the missing foreboding feeling of being jumped by her roommate back at Tokiwadai.

Now that she thought about it, she should probably send her roommate back at her dorm a message that she wouldn't be be there for longer than expected.

Misaka took out her phone, she had not turned it on since the she had boarded the plane earlier. Her missed message count was fairly high, not much of a surprise knowing her roommate Kuroko when considering her Onee-sama had suddenly decided to take a trip with no prior warning. As expected the messages all contained, the inevitable "where are you?".

The level 5 sent a message saying she would not be home that night and set her phone on silent, she thought about calling Kuroko directly but phoning the teleporter while Touma was within ten metres of her was probably asking for trouble. Misaka decided to call later when she had decide on a suitable excuse, no need for her roommate to know the fine details of her trip after all.

"I'm done with the bathroom" Misaka said as she exited through the door, then she noticed her temporary roommate for the night was staring at her.

"What?"

"Nothing. I just noticed I've hardly seen you when your not wearing your Tokiwadai uniform"

"Oh," suddenly the girl was a lot more conscious of what she was wearing, it was her favourite Gekota pyjamas. "What? Are you saying I look weird?!"

"No, no, not weird, just different," The boy gave a forced smile.

""Weird" and "different" mean the same thing here idiot!"

"Err, "different" wasn't the right word...let's see, your..er..cute. Yeah that's the right word. Your cute."

"Hmmph, obviously flattery, but fine, for the sake of peace I'll accept it anyway."

* * *

It wasn't until near evening that Tokiwadai's Queen's search bore results. The cat scan plan, err... the feline surveillance operation had been a success. It wasn't convenient sorting through cats to find information though, it went through the process picking a cat at random at the presumed areas, gaining information, if there seem something suspious, gathering more cats from the area and comparing overlapping data and then the trial of putting the information in order.

Looking back, the operation was a bit tedious, some people would have surely given up searching for people this way, if they didn't have the "psychic assisted willpower" trait that gave them that hard-working energy.

As it just so happened, it seemed the kidnappers did have a general base for where they stored there victims. It still wasn't determined what they needed the victims for, but at least they were abducted alive so there was a good chance they were still living. Other than that the Queen summarised the information into notes.

1) The group consisted of 3 to 5 members of which 2 were female at least.

2) The were not very well armed judging from there body shape.

3) They were all capable of esper abilities.

4) Presumed powers could be categorised into Invisibility, Pyrokinesis, Enhanced speed.

5) They were using an enhanced cloak to hide their presence, whether this was an ability or technologically based was unknown, but a lingering scent left them to be susceptible to the awareness of a cat.

This was what she could conclude with the available facts so far, however this wasn't the end to it, she planned to observe them for a while longer, cats were even more effective at night after all, and any victims in the meantime was worth the potential information, but soon it looked like she would have enough knowledge to set out a suitable trap.


	3. Chapter 3

Mental Out calmly sipped her tea, she was sitting at a restaurant just outside of School Garden's restriction, an escort of six Tokiwadai espers sat around her, from an outside perspective this looked like nothing more than a gathering of friends of middle school girls. While contently eating the complementary cake the Queen of the clique, Misaki, once again reviewed the results of her nightime search.

Apparently these kidnappers slept at night, who knew? This group of four, two slept while two kept watch, shifting watch every three hours.

There invisibility also seemed to be drawn from the clothing they were wearing, a kind of concealment equipment which became dormant while they were not active, this meant that they couldn't hide themselves indefinitely or there were certain unknown activation conditions that must be fulfilled, if they could not use it on the fly, then they could probably capitalize on a time when they were not functioning.

The perpetrations were almost complete, the plan was simple, while the enemies guard was lowered they would start a pre-emptive strike with a quick mobile four person squad, a to too big squadron would tip them off and if it evolved into a drawn out battle reinforcements would arrive. Various groups of people were staged over the area to prevent them from fleeing. The reason why they didn't send over every esper available was that a large force would cause to much disturbance and ruin the element of surprise. She herself would serve as a sort of mission control operating safely from a distance, it would be retarded if the leader herself was directly leading on site with some hastily put together information.

Judging from patterns the kidnappers resting time and when their invisibility was active, the perfect moment was soon. Ideally she would capture each one individually at the same time across the city, but that was near impossible, instead it seemed the best reasonable opportunity was around early midday, when two of them were grouped together and their concealment should not be able to be activated.

* * *

Misaka Mikoto was at the moment peacefully sleeping within the blankets of the bed that was provided for her, it was a bit bigger than her one sized bed back at her dorm but that did not discourage her, no, what had disturb her right now was something different entirely.

As she lied on her side while facing the nearest wall something ebbed onto on to her slowly stirring her toward consciousness, this sensation she had felt it in the middle of the night several times before, it was the feeling of movement within the bed, and yet for someone who was supposed to be the only one occupying the bed, the movement wasn't hers.

In her half-asleep state she reached the most recurring answer, that her roommate Kuroko Shirai had snuck into her bed again, this was really tiresome, you would think that girl would establish at least some limits after all the shock therapy she went through! Then the Railgun then realized something didn't exactly fit, Kuroko shouldn't be here, that overly affectionate girl should still be back at Academy City, that girl wouldn't just appear across the globe just to sneak into her Onee-sama's bed would she? Okay, she probably would, the point was she shouldn't be able to, not unless she somehow knew Mikoto's location, which the level 5 had conveniently misinformed her about.

The electromaster grew more conscious of the abnormal shuffling beneath her sheets, before turning around of making any sharp movements she needed to think about this rationally, let's see, she was in a foreign land, in a foreign room, far away from almost all the people she knew, almost none of her friends or family knew where she was except for a certain boy...a certain boy that should be the only one in the room with her, that level 0, Kamijou Touma!

Mikoto still lying on her side quickly found herself wide-awake, almost discharging her powers full out for a brief moment, but she restrained herself, if it was truly was the misfortunate boy fidgeting behind her back she had to... no, think through this a little more. She decided to pretend to be asleep for a few minutes in order to get her thoughts in order, no sudden movements as she tried to evaluate the situation.

The girl began hypothesizing, for example, the most likely event was that guy was sleepwalking, yeah, he must of used of used the bathroom during the night and when he came back he must have accidently got into the wrong bed, that was it, but... in that case shocking him awake would be too harsh now wouldn't it? She should silently ignore him and when he wakes up himself he would embarrassingly realize his own mistake...No, regardless whether it was an accident or not, a sudden strike of lighting would be more appropriate, just like it was appropriate for any perverted teleporter who had snuck into her bed.

But then again, would it be so bad to let the guy sleep a little while longer, it wasn't as if he was doing anything and besides in her heart she knew that a part of herself actually kind of wanted to lie next to him for while, she could let things be for a while and harshly scold him for it later.

Then she felt the vague form of an arm slowly drape itself around her midsection, over her side and around her stomach.

"What the hell!" the level 5 screamed giving a strong kick towards the person on reflex, knocking them away from the bed and onto the floor, blanket and all.

"What do you think your doing, you stupid, perverted...nun!?"

Rising from the floor, the figure indeed revealed itself to be the nun Index and she did not look happy.

"Touma! Why did you kick me for, you shouldn't...?!" the sister clad in her night attire abruptly realized who she was talking too. "What the? Short Hair? Argh, your not Touma!"

"Well neither are you!" Misaka responded clutching her chest. "What were you doing sleeping in bed with me? You don't...your not like Kuroko, right?"

The nun crossed her arms, carefully eyeing the other girl.

"What was I doing? I was sleeping obviously, no, the real question is what your doing in this double bed, didn't you say last night that you would be sleeping in the fuuton?"

"I was going to, but that idiot insisted I take that I take the better quality bed, I mean, you know what he is like."

"Hmmmph, fine that sounds like something he would do"

"As for you," the Railgun sighed. if you thought it was that guy sleeping in the bed why did you get in after him?"

"That's because if I did that, it would be fair right?"

""Fair"?"

"Yeah, if you get to sleep in the same room as Touma, it's only fair that I get to sleep in the same bed as him." Index stated matter-of-factly, logic was ignored.

"On what planet would that be considered fair!"

"Excuse me you two, but could you keep it down a little" spoke a half asleep and raising one arm upwards while she lied on the couch Kanzaki Koari.

"What!? She's here too!?" the Railgun shouted in surprise with no apparent effort to lower her voice.

"It's not that surprising," the saint said while sitting up figuring there would probably be no opportunities to rest for a while. "As the guardian of Index during her return, I'm duty-bound to accompany her here."

"Really? Her guardian? Wouldn't her guardian stop her usually stop her from sneaking out and into someone else's bed!?"

"While it is mildly unorthodox but there should be no problems and long as I am in close proximity of her, besides, look at her face, how can you say "no" to that?"

Mikoto glanced at the nun, she was making a pouting look in a mix of annoyance and anger, true, it might seem very adorable to some people, but Mikoto felt that she would refuse her quite easily if she had too.

The Railgun inwardly sighed, weird situations kept on popping up, she searched the looked over the room for something to take her frustrations out on, it was then she noticed something that she felt she should taken note of earlier, the absence of a certain boy.

"Hey, where is that idiot anyway, I don't see him here, something happen?"

"If your looking for Kamijou, he left earlier, he said he wanted to take a walk and bring breakfast while he was at it, come to think of it, that was a while ago, perhaps he has gotton lost" the said while rubbing the sleep from one of her eyes.

"Figures"

* * *

The target's location was a small room on the second floor building of a hotel of some sort located just within the territory of School Gardens, surprisingly the area was a lot less populated than what it should be, it was practically abandoned, while it was still morning, you would expect a few more people out in the street, an unknown power was at works perhaps.

Misaki took direct control over one girl in her squad while leaving the other three mostly conscious, no one but the girls themselves knew how to use their powers to the fullest after all, the only thing that she tweaked a little was a bit of their loyalty, removal of the sense of fear and doubt and dulling the amount of pain that they would feel. She also established a telepathic link for communication.

Counting down in there minds Misaki, prepared to co-ordinate the attack. Positioning three of her followers outside the door of the would be apartment while another was left outside the building to handle support.

Using the esper's sensor abilities she was able to get a rough layout of the room, the enemies locations within it, checking for any hidden escape route, she visualized them all and sent the images onto her four person party.

The team of three people broke through the door and rushed into the room with split second timing, scrambling into a combat formation and hoped to secure the opposition in the confusion. Meanwhile the fourth member of the group outside of the room, an esper with powerful wind related abilities created a wall of wind surrounding the window, shattering the glass but sealing off the enemies probable method of escape.

"Argh, what the hell was that!?" the two kidnappers were caught off guard as the unexpected attack.

The groups stood facing each other, their first face to face meeting, sizing up their opponents. Taking in the opponents appearance, they were both girls who appeared in their late teens, one had short white hair, was slightly taller than average, the other had medium length red hair and a thin build, but the part that was abnormal was the way they were dressed. When not under their cloaks of invisibility the wore strange brown robe like clothing patterned with odd markings drawn all over them, non of the markings were recognisable to the girls of Academy City. On closer inspection the markings were not restricted to their clothes, they appeared to be some even tattooed across their skin, coupled with the odd look they also wore strange accessories like strange rings across their finger and necks. It wasn't necessarily bizarre to wear odd titbits in Academy City, some espers actually wore some pretty strange thing to focus their power, but even by those accounts these people were in a different league.

Mental Out noted if it wasn't for their camouflage clothing they would have stuck out like a sore thumb, either way she sent a mental message to a secondary group to start mobilizing, considering the option of going on the offense her or stall for back up.

"Egh, unexpected company!" the white haired kidnapper spoke with a irritatied tone while putting her fingers onto the temple of her head as a sign of annoyance, apparently not phased by the flashy entry. "Who the hell are you anyway?!"

"Were from Judgement!" the voice of the girl the Queen controlled shouted. "Surrender peacefully and you will not be harmed!"

This was of course a lie, neither Mental Out or any of her present followers were affiliated with the student run anti-criminal force known as Judgement, it would be foolish to reveal to your true affliction to an enemy and that place was easy identifiable scapegoat.

After muttering something to her partner behind her the white haired girl walked forward, focusing almost all attention on her, her eyes stood out the most overshadowing her jewellery, her right eye was a shade of blue while her left was green. As for weapons she was equipped with a sword, one that look like a cross between a scimitar and a cleaver that was the length of her arm.

Drawing all the attention to herself to herself in that moment, the white haired enemy provided a small opening for her ally to escape, however the effort was futile. her partner was blasted back and repelled against the wall when she tried to exit through the open window.

"I see," said the first kidnapper, after confirming that her ally was conscious she looked toward the window, since wind was invisible perhaps they would second-guess the mechanics of the barrier.

The kidnapper then drew hew sword from her waist, perhaps considering direct combat or was it to counter the wind barrier? Misaki's group watched hoping to get a hint of her abilities rather than charging in blindly. Then in a moment she slashed it downwards causing a the whole room to shake, her target was not Misaki's clique before her nor was it the mysterious barrier instead what was now before her was a gaping hole in the wall.

"Get going!" the kidnapper with the sword told her red-haired accomplice shrugging towards the fresh new hole leading to the outside, the strategy was questionable but it was effective, rather that directing attacking the people who blocked the door who outnumbered her or the almost impenetrable barrier she created a brand new escape route.

The red-haired kidnapper quickly ran towards the recently constructed exit, her form disappearing as she fled to the westward. Misaki's group was not prepared for that and but did not give chase, the sword wielding kidnapper was still here and guarded the escape route, if they gave a slight opening to capture the fleeing opponent now it might prove fatal, rather they choose to focus on the white haired girl before them, they were content with just capturing one of them for now and they could always leave the other one for later.

The sword wielding girl stood before them still, stalling for time for her ally to escape or was it confidence she could defend herself and just got rid of an unwanted hindrance in her way?

"My name is Mizar, well you don't have to remember it" the white-haired kidnapper spoke, as she casually moved her sword in front of her, the sword had glowing marks on it similar to her clothes. "I can't believe we got found so easily, oh well without that guy around guess our security is a bit lax"

Considering that this kidnapper dubbed Mizar had decided to speak it was best to conclude that her tactic was to stall Misaki's forces rather than attack, this choice was fine as far as Mental Out was concerned, if she wanted to chat she could probe some information, the reinforcements that she ordered to come would be here in a few minutes anyway increasing her advantage if she stalled as well.

"Your charged with abduction of several people though out the city, is that true?" the girl with Misaki in mind shouted with telepathically sending a message to create another wind barrier against the new hole for all the good it would do.

"Obviously, we wouldn't be here if I wasn't," the white haired girl stated sarcastically.

"Now tell me, where are they? Where are the people you captured?!" asked Misaki's proxy acting out the Judgement girl she pretended tp be.

"Those guys? There dead of course"

"Dead?"

"Yeah, dead," the girl known as Mizar stated as simple as commenting on the weather and gestured toward the room. "What? You didn't expect we would keep them all in this tiny apartment did you?"

"What the hell did you do to them!?"

"Just a few experiments here and there, nothing much, I mean they were espers, you people get experimented on all the time after all. If it makes you feel any better, they died for a worthy cause "

The way she uninterestedly stated this, lead a hint to either she had done this many times before or she was a special kind of insane.

"What? Explain!"

"Err, if it's all the same to you I rather not, it's really tedious to explain, it would take forever if I took the time to tell every person before they die after all"

"Alright fine, next question, tell me who do you work for, what kind of group are you?"

"Hmmm? Interesting, you think we work for someone else, either way I guess it's better for us if you think that way, erh, either way looks like I bought enough time. You should have know this but talking with this should have given enough time for my ally to escape"

The Queen's clique noticed a sudden change in the girls demeanour.

"With the "Stall time through negotiating" part over I'd say it's safe for some amusement" the white haired girl made a battle stance emphasizing her feet, was she going to make a dash and run for it, no, rather it was as if she wanted a fight.

The kidnapper made a straight-line charge for her first victim, her movement was abnormal, it was almost as if she disappeared through pure speed.

Targeting Mental Out's proxy, the faux-Judgement girl, was push backed with a fist and thrown against the back wall with a loud thud and slid down to the floor, she did not get back up.

"Shame that your no use to us if you were dead straight away so I have to hold back on killing you, either way try to entertain me with a decent fight" The girl with the sword held lazily in her right hand after she had delivered the punch with her left.

In turn the level five's squad reorganized their formation to counter attack, the girl that was knock onto the floor that Misaki was borrowing feigned unconsciousness, the body still had her sensing powers that did not require the host to move and with the unspoken telepathic communication, it was best to pretend the body was removed from the fight.

The white haired girl turned towards her next target, tensing her muscles slightly and swiftly made a direct charge intending to send a blow of physical force to the next nearest person, however Misaki's squadron had moved their priority to counter speed of there opponent.

A crashing sound, the kidnapper had collided with a wall, missing her target when she made a blow and the leftover force catered her directly into the solid wall with the impact of her own speed. This wasn't a coincidence of just being clumsy, Mental Out had prepared a counter through a power of her ambush group, a Buoyancy manipulation esper, though sounding non-threating it disrupted the targets sense of balance in a set area which would be fatal to "Speed" type class abilities, unable to properly control their own speed, they would surely do more damage to themselves if they continued to use it.

Mizar the kidnapper quickly rose up and tried to rush attack the group again, only to be sent careening into an adjacent wall, her wounds were bleeding but seemed superficial as she was still able to resist.

"Darn it!" an annoyed grunt from the speed/sword using kidnapper, attempting to figure out the technical methods used to stop her attack.

"Fine, how about this then!" the girl raised her ring adored left hand facing it toward the Buoyancy user.

A bright hot flame shot out of her hand, the sudden fire attack catching the group off guard and scoring a decent hit on the Buoyancy esper.

The Queens force's had momentarily hesitated, it was not the attack itself that surprised them but the way he had attacked them, he attacked them before with a speed ability and now pyrokenis, wasn't this a dual esper power? Sure, her invisibility and sword abilities before could probably be attested to very advanced technology, but here now she was free wielding fire, was this possible for a common esper? Not by conventional laws.

The fire blast hit the buoyancy esper, revealing her to suffer severe wounds and burns some parts of her still burning on fire, she would definitely need medical attention later, but despite this she still held here ground maintaining her powers to disrupt her opponent's speed, in the normal scenario that fire attack should have taken her out, the pain would be enough to cripple her into blacking out, but of course the ability to fully feel pain was negated be Metal Out's ability.

At this moment the next member of the ambush squad intercepted the leftover fire attack with a well placed sphere of water coming from numerous bottles and containers that she carried, this person possessed the ability called "Hydro Hand", a water manipulation ability (Level 3), directly chosen to counter-attack the fire abilities that was listed in the recon reports.

Following this, the water esper switched to offense, launching several water tendrils as a fast direct attack to their enemy.

Some of the water shots hit while some were dodged or blocked with fire or sword, with most of her speed handicapped, she withstood a few hits, for the moment it looked like Mental Out's clique had the advantage, they needed to be, the buoyancy comrade would not remain usable for long with here injuries, they needed to end this soon.

The water esper continued hammering her attack with what here resources allowed. Each hit had enough force to do deal great damage on the average human, however the enemy seemed unfazed, maybe possessing some super-human resists. Wait, looking closer now the enemy had some clump-like shield of some sort, made out of ...crystal, no not crystal, it was ice, a pillar of ice?

The esper hesitated wondering how in the world that had appeared there, it wasn't as if...

The water esper quickly knocked an incoming rock of ice out of the air with her water. This enemy had cryokenesis abilities as well!? This went beyond a duel power esper which was already impossible, there had to be some trick to it! But that thought went out of her head, she was still in direct combat, she could figure all that stuff out later, right now she needed to keep her head in the game.

The battle escalated as water and ice were thrown though the air with an occasional burst of fire, the tide of the battle changed as the kidnapper gained momentum, the deciding factor was that when the water attack was stopped the enemy converted it into ammo to her own attack, it wasn't that Mental Out's esper couldn't turn it back into water but at level 3 the technique took to long and wasn't field worthy, but the clique needed to do something, if this continued they would lose. They had only seconds to go through their options.

Mental Out's squad once again had to change strategies, for starters the removal of the wind wall that was sealing the window and hole in the wall, the wind esper outside on the ground instead redirected her powers to a propulsion and jump straight to the room via the window, her role changing from entrapment to offense.

Taking advantage of the fact the girl with weird powers had her back to the window while concentrating on the others, the esper launched a powerful burst of wind hitting the kidnapper hard on the back using her blind spot and sending her careening to the opposite wall, surprisingly the enemy still held on to her weapon even as the wall took a definite dent as she crashed into it.

Not allowing the enemy a chance to recover the wind esper sent a follow up attack sending a continuous barrage of wind pressing the white haired girl against the wall, hopefully if they kept this wind pressure they could continue pressing the enemy against the wall rending them immobile for the time being.

Using this method that both utilised both offense and defence, and reinforcements estimated to arrive in mere seconds now, it would be Misaki's victory if this managed to work.

If only it wasn't for the wall suddenly deciding to cave in from the continuous impact. With a loud crash the white haired girls was pushed straight threw the wall as it came coming down, the building still held though and though the room shook a bit it seemed that no other part of the building had collapsed.

Side stepping the debris hoping to continue pressure the kidnapper but this situation had let heir opponent out and running over to the area, before the dust settled an ice tendril suddenly shot threw towards them only to be parried away by the wind esper lodging the attack harmlessly onto the wall.

"Can't attack you directly, can't get in an ambush..." the enemy's voice reverberated through the air, no it was not just her voice that was saturating the ambiance, various sounds of shuffling and footsteps were approaching. "And there is more of you, great..."

It was true, Mental Out's group had successfully stalled this person long enough for reinforcements to arrive as new people seemed to peak around the corners of the building.

"Looks like I have to cut my losses," the kidnapper's unhappiness was clear. "Engaging you people directly like this further seems pointless, you said you were from a group called Judgement right, I'll remember it".

Confronted with the numbers advantage the one sole enemy started backing away to and increased her distance, with most her abilities rendered useless it seemed it was time to use the one of her most trusted techniques, a secret skill based on her enhanced speed, she didn't want to use it but she had no choice, the technique was called "retreating" or more commonly known as running away.

Mizar stiffened her grip on her sword with her right hand, with her left hand recklessly she began throwing small balls of fire, non of the shots were properly aimed and no where near her targets, but more importantly she was concentrating her energy to her right hand and the sword she held. She quickly stabbed the ground with her blade, the runes on her sword lit up, her sense of gravity was thrown off as she fell through the floor right down to the ground level below.

Escaping like this was risky but for the kidnapper it looked like she didn't have any other option, capture here would probably be worse than death itself. The impact from the fall was nothing compared to the attacks she was victim to earlier. Seemingly falling into an empty room, she had to cut all the walls in her way to reach outside while avoiding her pursuers, once outside she should be able to escape, having complete confidence that her speed was enough to escape.

The queen's followers within the building's second floor, now gained over three times the amount of people stared at the hole at the floor which the white haired girl made, an oversight in their plan, while sealing the doors and stairs, how come hardly anyone considers how fragile the walls are in comparison, pursuit was there only option there was after delegating first aid towards the initial ambush group.

The kidnapper Mizar had made a successful escape, disappearing the moment she was let out of sight, despite a few unpredicted abilities the prey had escaped, this was humiliating, or at least it would be humiliating if one of Misaki's precautions had not kicked in.

Although they had failed to capture one of the primary targets, it didn't mean that was all to the ambush, after all at the start of the attack their had been two targets, one of those was the white0hair girl Mizar but there was another girl with red hair, that girl who had made an early escape.

It just so happened that when that girl had escaped earlier Mental Out took note of which direction she fled and by silently messaging another prepared group allowed them to take the upper hand and capture her. Surprisingly it seemed it was easily done too, perhaps this one didn't have much combat ability compared to her ally.

It appeared that the enemy failed to recognise the number of people they were facing as well as unable to identify that telepathy abilities were in play, this was a mistake that cost them.

Shokuhou Misaki couldn't call her plan a complete success but the results were satisfactory, a enemy was captured and the information that could be extracted from her could very well set her allies up for certain defeat, although a small bit of injuries were sustained on one of her followers it was negligible and the escaping enemy probably believed it was Judgement that had attacked them.

Just to make sure, she verified by requesting a photo of the enemy they had captured to be sent to her phone.

The leader of the clique ordered a few extra confectionaries from the café to celebrate her partial success as she ordered the kidnapper to be transported and prepared her personal underground holding cell to await her special interrogation.

* * *

In an unknown room a solitary girl was sitting on a chair, or more accurately she was forced to sit in a chair, straps were adorned across her straight jacket like suit binding her to the uncomfortable seat and restraining her movement, everything from swaying her red hair or even turning her neck was restricted from her. How long she had been there she didn't know, it could have been a hours.

"This seems a bit overdone" The girl spoke to no one in particular, not that she knew if anyone was anyone was close enough to listen to her or not, the blindfold prevented her from that. Earlier this girl, had been captured by an unknown enemy and thoroughly disarmed, before she know it she was bound, temporally gagged, stripped of all possessions and then forced into some kinky restraint outfit.

Suddenly she heard a sound of movement, there was somebody near her.

"Hello, Intruder-san, can you understand me?"

A voice came, sounded female, the tied-up girl had expected this sooner or later, it followed process, capture to interrogate and torture, nothing new, still though she might as well play along for a bit, nothing else to do now that all her items were confiscated and she was stuck here anyway.

"Yes, I can understand you. I suppose your here to interrogate me and all that, well for starters my name is Alioth, nice to meet you, that was a freebie so you can call me by a name, well then again it is just a code name anyway."

"Interesting Alioth-san, quite conceited aren't you," the voice responded back jovial, as she was mocking the person before her. "You do understand the position your in right?"

"Yep, it's not an unusual thing in my field of work, so might as well be courteous, what's your name anyway, I'd like to know the name of my tormenter for the evening"

The voice gave a stifled laughter and moved closer to the helpless captive.

"You don't need to my name, think of me as just a loyal servant of a great queen"

"A servant for a great queen you say?"

"Yes, it may sound arrogant but my queen is simply divine, well you will see soon, it's not my place to say, but you should be honoured that such a person will soon be coming over to see you personally"

"So your boss is going to be the one to put the screws to my head then"

"A crude way of putting it but correct Alioth-san, anyway my job is to keep you company for a while and see if you will give up any information willingly, so take your time, I'm not going to really pressure you for what it is worth"

"Willing information you say? Well then...My name is Alioth, I'm 16 years of age, my hobbies are reading and my favourite food is dango."

"That's...cute, but you know that isn't the information were looking for"

"Well...in that case, hmmm, I know, I'm not supposed to tell you this but...my three sizes, starting from top to bottom are 82-65-..."

"I see," the voice still jovial interrupted. "Well, nobody actually expected you to just volunteer information, as far as everyone is concerned this is just a formality anyway"

A sudden knocking sound then filled the room, the material sounded like metal and the room seemed to be mostly empty judging from the echo of the knocking.

"Well it looks like it's time Alioth-san, looks like my queen will be here in a few minutes, don't worry though, I'll still be in the room to keep an eye on you."

"Oh well, been nice meeting, I look forward to see which medieval torture devices you p...Owww, that hurt"

The girl who was strapped to the chair felt a sudden sharp pain near her neck, it was a needle, something had been injected into her.

"Don't worry, as you probably figured it's nothing lethal, it's not a love drug either in case your worried about that, it's just a paralyzing drug that interferes with your nerves so you can't move, or at least that was what I was told."

The wasn't any response from the captive girl, not that anyone expected one at this point, the drug was fast acting, she was still breathing and conscious or at least seemed to be. After she had injected the victim with the drug the girl went to the wall of the room and knocked five times, the wall responded by making a noise that knocked back four times. It was time.

Several metallic clicking and scraping sounds were heard, revealing a hidden door and the person behind it, the person known as Mental Out, the Queen, Shokuhou Misaki.

"Shokuhou-sama," the girl greeted her queen while waving. "I have taken care of this girl just like you asked, are you finished your preparations then?"

"Yes of course ," the blond ojou-sama of Tokiwadai said, while making a weird pose and twirling a remote control in her hands, this was followed by two more girls entering the room, they were members of her clique.

"Is that the captive?" the Queen pointed at the person barely conscious and secured to the chair. "Poor thing, she's drooling all over herself."

"Yes, my Queen, just as you requested."

The girl, Alioth was tied down to the chair, restraints were hardly necessary at this point, her mind fluttered in and out, unable to notice even the new arrival in the room.

"Excellent" Mental Out approved with a smile as she pressed a button on her remote, the whole room was in her control, her three followers were in a state of semi conscious.

Misaki then lightly tapped the shoulder of the dark haired girl that had entered after her, signalling her to begin the regular test, this girl was a level 3 power user or alternatively called enhanced strength, one of the more common abilities in Academy City.

The dark hair girl walked up to the tied up, unresponsive Alioth and then gave a strong fist blow into the girl's stomach.

"Please don't mind it, this is only a precautionary test" the Queen called out, as she watched the captive girls body spasm on the chair which was locked down on the floor.

The power-user then grabbed one of Alioth's legs and released the manacles that only secured this one leg and gave a confirming nod to her queen.

A dull thump resounded in the room as the tied up girls leg was unhesitatingly broken, dangling in a very odd angle, not life threating but enough to keep it from moving even without drug assistance, but despite this there was no scream of pain, was it because the girl couldn't feel the snap of her bone or was it because she had no control of her vocal muscles?

"Very good," the fifth level five noted. "It seems you don't have the power to resist after all"

The captured girl once again made not response other than heavy breathing.

"Hi, do you understand or hear me ?"

Still no response, the dark haired power girl secured what was left of the husk of a leg back to the chair and walked back behind her queen.

"No? Good. Then let's get started. This might be rude of me but it's necessary, I'm going to read your mind, okay ?"

With a lift of her remote and with the push of a button Misaki was in some mysterious girl's head.

* * *

'This isn't going to plan' this was the thought mental out had as see assessed the situation. It all started simple enough, a simple mind-reading, go through memories and then this happened.

It started as just as usual enough, the information she extracted through her mind started as trivial, her codename was Alioth, she came from England, some kind of forced schooling, the usual stuff.

But then a certain words came up, one of them was some weird fantasy like term, that word was "magic". Now here she was staggering on the ground, using her arms to keep her body up. What had happened?

Misaki had dived into the subconscious of her captive and found something weird, something she did not understand, something that the mind's host classified as a "forbidden grimoire". The level five was curious, she peeked into the corners of the girl's head, she was then confronted with words and meanings she could not fathom and just before she could begin to analyse it she felt pain, not pain from the drugged girls mind but pain in her actual body.

'But why?' the Queen breathing was heavy, this had never happened before, she had prevented the captured girl from consciously using any abilities to defend herself by drugging her, was there some kind of counter-attack implanted in her brain specifically to be used against the ability of Mental Out?

"My Queen, what happened? Are you alright?" came the cry of Misaki's clique. It appeared for an instant her the Queen's telepathy ability had weakened, temporally allowing these girls to have a little more free thought than they should have.

The image of rune-like letters had briefly entered the blond telepathic girl's head, and that somehow caused her to suffer some physical damage. Misaki clutched her mouth as she tasted some of her blood.

Shokuhou looked up and stared at the girl strapped to the chair, the girl didn't seem to do anything actively, she was just sitting there, her eyes still blindfolded, drooling happily, her broken leg unmoving. But still, because of this incident, the level 5 Mental Out would have to deem her a threat, a threat that needed to be eliminated as soon as soon as she could give the order.

Deep breaths, slow breaths, she steadied her heartbeat, checking her body, the damage wasn't as bad as she thought, as long as she avoided trying to read the enemies mind again she should still be alright. They installed a safety mechanism straight into this person's brain to prevent probing? A tad bit extreme, unless of course they were expecting it of course.

Standing up, she took full control of all her nearby subordinates, there would be no need to remember what comes next. This ending was dissatisfying for everyone, disregarding all the possibilities and preparations the risk ensured she had no choice.

"Very well, kill her" Misaki give the order vocally and turned her eyes away to leave the room, as long as the drug still remained in effect it would be a painless death at least. More importantly there was something else that took priority she needed to do now.

As Mental Out faced the exit of the room she decided to rearrange her priorities again, rather a more pressing problem had just appeared.

There standing dramatically framed by the doorway was the other kidnapper her clique had encountered earlier today. That annoying person who had escaped earlier with the mysterious abilities of speed, fire and ice, Mizar.

"Well, it's fundamental to have a tracking spell or two to keep tabs on our allies in this line work, right?" the new arrivals sarcastic remark was irksome.

The Queen reluctantly marvelled how this person had snuck into the place, ignoring her guards and security systems that the Queen personally approved, this hidden underground holding facility with guards with a set up mind-hive patrolling the corridors, it would take some new virtually unknown power to escape her notice like this, some other worldly power like this so called "magic" that she had just discovered possibly.

The blond level five's first instinct would normally be to mentally crush this intruders brain with her mental powers and use the leftover grey matter to turn them into an absolute plan, but this case was different, if this new opponent had similar abilities to her ally this would result in...well better to not imagine it, a possible risk here was what she needed the least, therefore she had to rely on one of her continuity plans.

Without wasting a second Mental Out and by pressing a remote she was hiding behind her, she took telepathic control of all available followers in the facility and ordered them to do a disorganised full rush and charge attack against the intruder, this reckless tactic was surely going to cause a lot of injuries and maybe casualties but Mental Out thought it was worth it, after all her own life was possibly at risk here.

Starting with the three girls in the holding cell with the Queen and the nearest few patrols the response was almost instantaneous, however this mess of a formation had to much openings for an opponent with a speed ability.

"I am just here to pick up my subordinate here you know!" the white haired female kidnapper snapped, while quickly knocking down of the slower members of the clique while steadily gaining ground.

Misaki needed to take advantage in all this chaos, this little diversion she quickly orchestrated she be enough to serve it purpose.

The intruder Mizar blew back several people with her various abilities and made a jumping dash towards her drugged up ally, the momentum enough to do some decent damage, which it did as it knocked back the blond girl that was between them, this blond girl was NOT Shokuhou Misaki but someone who looked very eerily similar to her.

A simple escape plan from someone known as "That Paranoid Bitch", an esper with a "teleportation" class ability (level 3). In a room small distance away Misaki had premade an escape route, with her mind asleep a particular teleportation esper used an item on the Queen's person and initiated an abilities that swapped the location of the people involved. Disguised with a blond wig and uniform to emulate the clique leader, Misaki arranged what was basically a substitution technique.

* * *

Arriving at a comfortable safe distance away, the Queen was a somewhat regretful she had to resort to using the "teleportation" esper to escape, she knew it was probably a one off trick since the substitute would probably die, such a same, teleportation espers were quite rare with the best ones almost always recruited for a certain windowless building and she had to make due with a barely adept one to pull off this trick, but sacrifices needed to be made to survive in this city.

Misaki sat down on the ground so she could properly regain her composure, she had to revaluate the whole situation and make out a rational decision on what she had to do from here.

She had managed to verify a hostile group against academy city, they were kidnappers and murders using so method that was unknown to her, they were probably very conscious of her existence right now and had a vague understanding of her abilities and recourses so they would be sure to be on guard.

Frankly at this point the most amiable option route right now considering she wasn't targeted was to cut off her losses right now, she could pass all the information she had gathered off to Anti-Skill anonymously, suggest to them to use lethal force rather than capture, tighten her own personal security and be done with the whole situation.

That was an option but she would not take it, this was not a problem she could leave to someone else, there was a simple reason for this, when she went through the mind of the girl earlier, before she was locked out, a certain two familiar words changed the whole gravity of the situation, those words which were found in the head of this so called magician was the name "Kamijou Touma".


	4. Chapter 4

The tension in the air was heavy, as the trio of a magical library nun, a middle school esper and the supernatural defying teenager were waiting at the entrance of the church for the car that was supposed to pick them up. Earlier a certain saint had arranged for a chauffeur as transportation, since it was running a little bit late, Kanzaki had left to investigate.

"Sooo...weather's nice today" The Imagine Breaker decided to try everyday cliché ice breaker.

"Hmmph" A sound reminiscing a grunt came from the girls.

"Okay, I'm sorry, I know I might have got a bit lost in the building, but don't you think your over reacting just a little bit"

The two younger girls knew fairly well that they were indeed have gone a bit carried away with their assumptions and taking out their latent frustrations like the was probably disappropriate retribution but since things turned out like this there was no backing down now.

"What do you mean? I'm just clearing my throat a little, if it just happens that I somehow sounded like I'm frustrated with you it's just a coincidence"

It couldn't be helped, since an ominous feeling had sprung up inside the girls earlier caused them to rush out, after all when this person and the word "travel" mixes over something was bound to happen, there was no such thing as being paranoid when this happens.

Anyway, following there instinct a long string of things during which this and that happened, the result in the end just ended up as embarrassment for everyone involved, never the less in the end of the after the conclusion the three young women had found out that Touma was just in the usual situation of being delayed by some bad luck.

"Well what did you expect? The no such thing as being to careful right now, call it an ominous feeling that shows up that makes me feel a crisis will show up if wonder off on your own."

"Ergh, some part of me wants to deny that but I can't actually say that your wrong" making a resigned pose, Kamijou scratched the back of his head.

"So what exactly happened anyway?"

"Actually honestly nothing much, what I basically did was make breakfast, try to bring some back to the room, the usual tripping over something random resulting in me having to go back and trying again and more or less repeating that and after that is where you came in..."

"That 's...kind of mundane coming from you, you would almost think you lead a normal carefree high-school student life"

"Really? It's not like I can get into world ending crises just by walking down a few corridors right?"

"That's definitely not something to joke about, I mean this is you were talking about"

"I see..." The boy sighed. "When did my reputation get so bad that going to get breakfast by myself is a sign that a disaster is coming"

"When that actually happened is a good start, maybe it happens so much you begin to stop keeping track."

"What? That happened before? Seriously?" The spikey haired boy had just been half- jokingly exaggerating before, it was true he was bound to lose a few details in his adventures now and then.

"Touma, how many times do you think you have left to go and get me food and the next thing that happens is that I find out you are in hospital again"

"Well I...have no response for that..."

A moment later a small vehicle made its way over towards the group, judging from the two metre sword strapped to the roof of the car if was safe to say it was people their transportation for the day.

* * *

Complications and more complications, trying to identify each piece and where they fit together was impossible, Shokuhou Misaki was already fed up with trying to sort through the data she had collected, then of course irregular information kept on piling up.

Misaki had sent a proxy body to the residence of Kamijou Touma, maybe find a link between the misfortunate high-schooler and the irksome kidnappers she had yet to apprehend, only to find the dorm room empty. First, she assumed the worst, that the boy was captured, after all what did you expect when you room was protected by a locking mechanism that every tenth person you see in Academy City cold easily break through? Anyway, further investigation revealed that wasn't the case, a little mind probing here and there and she found the high-schooler had gone on a sudden trip to England. Knowing him it was probably some heroic rescue to save some damsel or something along those lines. The question was how was this related to the kidnappers currently in the city, for now this topic needed to be investigated further.

Next several reports about that girl she had kindly looked after and interrogated. Blood tests, irrelevant, no known identity, predictable, unknown residue, intriguing but no idea how to further investigate it. Next the analysis of the items she had confiscated, Misaki had sent all the girl's clothes, her invisibility uniform and even her underwear for testing, what came back was unexpectedly normal, were not made of anything special, just the regular cloth, those were marking inscribed onto it was just ordinary ink, that said it did feel like something was odd with it however the mechanics behind it could not be read with science.

Moving onwards, this whole idea of "magic". In combat it was true that the opponent did possess some interesting power, some of it could be produced by technology if you really had to stretch the data, or it could be one power that you could use to creatively simulate other powers, for instance maybe using something like "temperature displacement" to alter heat and cold to produce fire of ice, or maybe taking control of the element of oxygen directly using the oxygen in the water to manipulate it and using it in some way to combust it. But there was something more to that, Misaki had experienced it herself, when she tried to mind read that person earlier, now thinking clearing she definably felt some hidden power, was this the so called "magic". But the whole concept of a mysterious power was terrifying, if this "magic" was so convenient yet it's existence was hidden from the world, something that big was somehow being kept secret, and if something like that was successfully hidden who knows what other powers could be hidden as well, like those powers on kid's cartoons, if magic is real and being kept hidden whose to say that powers like those didn't exist either.

Lastly removal of evidence of all her and her clique's involvement in the incident so far, thankfully despite what happened so far, there had been no deaths among her forces during the encounters of the kidnappers, sure injuries were happily shared all around but no one died and medical technology was enough to stave off any unwanted effects, apparently during the breaking in of Misaki's interrogation cell, the intruder just went in and grabbed her ally and left, for whatever reason nobody was killed that time. So transporting her flowers to secure hospitals, eliminating all traces of evidence pertaining to her, planting fake evidence of Judgment and like, that went without a hitch.

* * *

Touma's group of four wondered through the streets of a locally well known shopping avenue, their ride had dropped them off not to far from their current location, since they were tourists if was probably for the best for them to experience places like these best on foot, having a vehicle transportation without a specific destination in mind could only take you so far.

Empowered by the vigour of a young girl given free reign to visit a wide range of shops she had never seen before, Misaka excitedly browsed through the window of each building they passed, with no crisis and no world-wide disaster looming over her shoulder it was hard to believe something like this was happening without any catch.

Equalling sharing the esper's excitement was the silver haired nun Index barely a step away, behind her wearing a content expression was the black ponytailed swordswoman Kanzaki Koari and bringing up the rear wearing his trademark spikey hair was the Imagine Breaker, Touma Kamijou.

Today the level 0 was actually fairly jovial, however this was not due to being in the company of three pretty girls as one would expect, it was the fact that for once that his money was safe from trying to fill a small nun's never ending hunger, all costs were covered by Nessesarius. While normally he would feel guilty depending on a church for his expenses but thinking about all that they had put him through over a few months let him overlook and negative feeling that would have existed.

Looking at the group as a whole it was quite the odd match, starting with the high-school wearing a plain outfit similar to his school's uniform, the older-looking girl whose usual clothes consisted of a figure showing tied up shirt and jeans ripped showing off one of her legs, the small child-like nun wearing her usual white sister's robe and the middle school girl who had taken the advantage to break free from Tokiwadai's uniforms restrictions wearing a fashionable sleeveless shirt and pants combo.

Of course to the residents of Academy City the technology shown through the windowing shopping wasn't overly impressive, though the few cultural changes and designs made for a nice change of pace.

Taking a moment to appraise the quality of a stuffed bear though a window, Misaka thought what souvenirs to bring back for her friends, she wondered what each of them would like, something to do with a local urban legend maybe, her friend Satan would like that. It was a cheerful feeling for the level five, doing something so trivial just for the sake of it, she had a few free days away from the influence of being known as one of the top espers and she planned to make full use of it.

"So then, does anybody have anywhere that they particularly want to go to?" asked the eager to be a tour guide Kanzaki Koari.

"Oh I want to go over there! Over there!" Index happily shouted as she pointed to the most colorful building she could see which was unsurprisingly, a restaurant.

"Again? But Index didn't you just eat?"

"Fine Touma, in that case where would you like to go?"

"Well, when you put it like that, I don't really know the place so..ah, hey Biri-biri, anywhere you want to go?"

"What? Don't ask me, I'm just as unfamiliar with the terrain as you are and by the way, my name is Misaka Mikoto!"

"It would seem our best option would be to settle for the restaurant for now, meanwhile I'll show you a basic map and let you deicide where you would like to go"

The boy had had no choice but to deem it reasonable enough.

"So, so, Touma, this time I can get as much as I want and you won't complain about the cost" the white nun was brimming with enthusiasm as she started making a mental list of what she would like to order.

"Now Index, that's up to your temporary guardian Kanzaki over there, the church is treating us so be sure to check with her alright."

"Oh, I see, in that case..." the silver haired sister turned to her temporary guardian in question and put on her best "please feed me face". "So food please?"

"Of course, anything you want" The saint replied without any hesitance.

"Yay!"

With that, the small nun was soon inside and at a table at random and quickly tried to get the attention of any nearby waiter.

"Don't you think you might be spoiling her a little bit?" Misaka mumbled as she watched a waitress stumbling with a pen as she tried to jot down Index's many orders, some pity went out towards the chefs who would have to overwork themselves today.

"It's fine, it makes her happy so a little thing like this is no problem at all"

"No, actually Kanzaki, we might have a problem" came Touma's grim voice.

"Hmmm?"

"A rich oujou-sama thinks that Index is spoilt, that m.. actually no, never mind going down that route would only end in misfortune, forget I mentioned anything..."

Taking a seat next to Index the high-schooler with menu now in hand planned to finally have a luxurious meal, he may even get to finish it by himself too, however the smirk upon his face was quickly withdrawn as he realized while glancing though the menu that he had he had ran face first into his old friend, the language barrier. With a resigned groan Touma asked the girls to order something hopefully more extravagant than he would normally have at home.

When the meal arrived the Imagine Breaker wasn't sure what was put before him other than figuring that it was at least meat, he gave a shrug and began to eat. As for the ladies that had accompanied him, the nun displayed her world renown appetite without holding back as a variety of dishes were brought before her, clearly a case of quantity over quality was at work here.

The other two girls, the esper Misaka and the saint magician Kanzaki temporarily ignored their meals to watch the prowess of the small nun's food intake. For the level five, she was amazed at the sight before her, she had seen a lot of things that came with being one of the elite espers of Academy City but nothing quite compared to seeing this little creature gobble down food like this and at such a speed with no sign of losing any momentum at all.

On the other hand Kazaki Koiari seemed to be watching for the cuteness factor, the look on her face was one of a doting mother on a small child, taking their every action as a sign of affection.

For Touma watching his regular roommate rat was common occurrence that he had long since gotton used too, there was more novelty in watching Misaka's and Kanazaki's reactions than watching Index's. It still wasn't much worth as far as entertainment went anyway and his attention quickly dwindled, that was until he noticed the swordswoman magician furrow her eyebrows and place her hand to her forehead, tired from overworking perhaps.

"Something wrong Kanazaki?"

"No , not a problem exactly but there is a slight change with our schedule" the saint replied while turning towards the spikey haired boy.

"Ahh, a headache?"

"No, actually I just received a request that requires the presence of the grimore library through a communication spell"

"What!? But I just started my meal!" Index interjected, a large pile of already finished plates in front of her.

"Don't worry, it isn't urgent enough that I have to drag you away right now, so take your time."

The nun gave a curt nod and went back to her meal, albeit she was eating at a faster pace than before, not wanting to leave the risk.

"Well I can't say I'm surprised, their walking grimore library is rarely here after all, they probably want some reference on something before she leaves again" Touma sighed, I guess that means we have to go back to the church after coming all the way our here, such misfortune."

"Not necessarily Kamijou, the request only mentioned the presence of Index and her current guardian, me in this case"

"So that that means...I can tour the place around here for a bit whole you manage Index for me?"

"Essentially yes"

"Touma, why did you have to say it that way" The gluttonous nun paused with a bowl of soup raised halfway to her mouth. "You make it sound like I'm a burden or something"

"Sorry Index-san, I might have worded it wrong there, I'll buy you a souvenir later to make up for it. It's just that even a small victory like this hardly ever happens, maybe my misfortune has finally decided to show some mercy to me".

A random shout came erupted a few metres away from the high-schooler, who quickly turned his head to the direction of the cry.

"Such misfortune..." were the words barely audible to the world, followed by a dull splatting sound.

And thus Touma Kamijou was covered with the restaurant's daily special dish decorating the upper half of his body, as expected his all powerful force of misfortune had once again manipulated the laws of the world just to make Kamijou's life a little more uncomfortable. In this case, it took the form as a waitress had randomly tripped, giving the misfortunate boy's head a preview of what the meat dish she was carrying felt like, it even came with the special service of a young waitress falling onto his lap.

The waitress was practically grovelling on the floor repeating her apologies again and again, offering a discount on their meal as a way of atonement for her accident before she left to fetch a towel.

"Are you okay, Kamijou, did you sustain any burns?"

"No, no need to worry, I'm actually used to things like these happening " The boy had several pieces of meat and sauces lodged in his trademark spikey hair but looked unharmed otherwise and laughing off the accident.

"Do things like this happen often?"

"More times then I can remember, such misfortune." Touma muttered as he tried unsuccessfully to wipe the meal off of him, not wanting to give an excuse to the person next to him to bite him . "When it comes to me, there is no such limit as far as bad luck is concerned"

"It's like the world's version of making fun of you in a way" the white nun considered before resuming her meal.

"If that's the case I don't see the amusement on watching repeats every time I go out, then again, I guess I should actually be grateful that's all that happened, so anyway back to what were discussing about before"

"Ahhh...yes, that," momentary distracted Kanzaki continued. "So like I was saying in just over one hours time, Index is requested to oversee some of our more troublesome enchantments therefore I have to escort her back, so as a result have some free time to explore the place at your leisure."

"Free time? Well it will be fun just touring the shops randomly" he shrugged it off as it was nothing worth concerning himself over.

"If you would like I should be able to get Styl to guide you if you want, however I should apologise, in another way you could say I'm just abandoning you in a location that your unfamiliar with, my deepest apologies but duty calls"

"No don't worry yourself these things happens," pushing off any blame that might have occurred, Touma rejected calling in Styl for help, part of it was that he didn't want to be rude enough to take away that persons time, well that and part of it was that the fire mage would complain a fair amount as well as mock Touma's new ground-breaking fashion of wearing food stained clothes through the streets.

* * *

The thing that troubled the mages most of all was the growth rate of the science side, for instance, it was known that magic had existed as long as they could remember, in that time mages had mastered ancient arts that allowed the to bend the elements and govern otherworldly laws, this took several years of deciphering sacred tomes and experimentations to reach the level they were now. Then there was the science side, ever since Academy City and its espers were founded their advances of not even a hundred years were nearly capable of surpassing the peak of magic, their strongest weapons were not even twenty years old yet.

They had their own circumstances as well and they had objectives that they would have to meet, little nuicenses such as morality or guilt had long since been removed from their minds.

It was simple in concept yet complicated to set out, the were sent out to test a newly created spell to counter espers, it wasn't perfect, far from it, but they had to experiment before they could perfect the inner workings of their recently acquired magic.

A group of magicians who had infiltrated the heart of the science side, their squad consisted of four people, the female leader swordsman Mizar, the currently unconscious mage Alioth, and the other two, the magician that was focusing on healing right now, with effeminate looks and long dark hair that made him seem like a frail girl was known as Phecda, and the last one who specialized in support spells and was helping with the healing was the young blond mage dubbed Dubhe. These four magic-users had invaded the infamous home of the world's most technologically advanced city with a mission to do...

The leader Mizar with her word straped to her waist and carrying the pitiful form of her drugged underling Alioth had dumped the unconscious girl on the ground of their temporary new hideout and requested her remaining allies to heal what was now the unconscious Alioth.

With a non-chalant nod from one of her other teammate and nervous fidgeting from the other, the two of them began a healing ritual to hopefully restore their fallen friend. Though both were unfamiliar with the extent of damage and types of technology's capabilities made use of, but the generalized healing spells should be more of less efficient enough to fit their needs.

She watched as her comrade applied healing magic towards her fallen ally. It was really a surprise for the group that someone in Academy city was able to give them a jump like that, no, actually thinking about, considering they were in a city full of odd powered espers they should have considered something like that as one of the first things possible.

They had dropped their guard this time, before they had even set out for this city they had be continuously warned about the monstrous ability of this so called "Imagine Breaker", the way people had gone out about it you would think the boy was all-powerful or something godly like that, but that was just it, when the immediate threat was gone they dived head first in false reassurance and relaxed, they had skimmed over their precautions that they should have handled with care and as a result one of their members was captured, really that girl wasn't even a combat type was taken in by the enemy .

Being attacked by a group who called themselves "Judgement", the name was familiar enough even if one was unfamiliar with the city, apparently it was a group comprised of students as a make shift law enforcement, but other than that Mizar and her group were sorely lacking on any knowledge, truefully it was actually shameful to be this much ignorant of your enemies, but from what they had been told the only dangerous threat would be Touma Kamijou and any other enemies were not worth looking over in comparison.

Now there was a threat that was aware of their existence, not only that they were capable of rising a suitable force to counter attack their group if they were unprepared. They would have to salvage this somehow, the first thing they would have to do was to gather information about the enemies, maybe raid one of Judgement's numerous buildings seeking their records when it was unoccupied.

* * *

With the departure of the church duo that left the two students of Academy city to their own devices. The two of them had the privilege to explore the shops of foreign land with almost no restrictions due to war or limited by the rules of their home city.

Misaka Mikoto was struggling within herself debating whether to ask the boy next to her to spend the day with her or not, are more accurately how to ask the boy to spend the day with her, it was slightly aggravating on how this oblivious this person was, her intentions were always misinterpreted by this person. If only if it was as easy as one of her dreams she had, ideally it would be even better if the boy asked her out instead, she could imagine the whole thing right now...

"So Misaka...umm, you don't have any plans right now do you?"

Yeah, just like that, if only it would somehow come true...wait...

"Um, what? Sorry, I didn't think I heard that correctly" The girl shook her head slightly trying to fully wake herself up, it was certainly a problem if her daydreams began interfering in her reality .

"I was wondering if your free, would you mind keeping me company for a while ?"

The electromaster stood dumbfounded for a moment, asking a person of the opposite gender like that, there was only was way she could interpret that, it was amazing that such simple words would have such an effect on her, time seemed to stand still for just a moment as the girl bit her lower lip to make sure this wasn't a dream. Ah pain, she had confirmed that she was indeed placed in reality, now the only thing left to do was to wait for the shock to settle in...

"Eeep! W-what are you saying idiot! ThereisnowayIcandothatidoit!"

The girl couldn't help it, the sudden outburst was her body's natural defence, she clamped her hands over her mouth and turned her back towards the high schooler, her face felt heated and any trace of an oujou-sama's composure had temporarily abandoned her.

"Uh, Biri-biri are you alright?" Touma's surprise only lasted for a moment at the the girl's over-exaggerated reaction, even for the person that freely shot railguns at him that was a bit over the top, his instinct to concern himself with other's problems forced him to worry.

"Yeah, I'm fine...yeah, I'm okay, just...just give me a moment, please"

The level five found her emotions in turmoil, even though she had mentally pictured similar situations like this in her head many times, her mind was drawing a blank, this wasn't going as she imagined. She wanted an outlet, maybe do something like scream into her pillow if she had the luxury right now, but knowing that couldn't, she forced herself to calm her mind, slow her heartbeat, enough to feign serenity.

"Misaka?"

The middle school could tell without even directly glancing towards this person that he was seeking some reassurance at least, she tried to channel her self that was always in the limelight of a level five, when she had to pretend to be more tolerable to Academy City and it's associates than she already was, a little forced acting, something that even deceived her roommate occasionally.

"Ah, if... if you want.. me to spend time with you that badly...I don't mind...I can come if you want me too" the girl's voice was a little higher than usual and her gaze darted in between the level 0 face and the ground to the right of her foot, still hopefully it wasn't that unnatural, well for this guy who was as usually denser than a rock it should be enough.

"Misaka, are you okay? Your face is all red, don't tell me, your not used to the local air and caught a cold?" Touma raised his hand to the Railgun's forehead with the intention of feeling her temperature.

"Funya!" Mikoto feeling the sudden contact jumped backwards, her inner wall trying to suppress her emotions was breaking down rapidly. "D-d-don't do that so freely, I'm okay, really!"

Retracting his hand in the air, Kamijou crossed his arms, by any means this wasn't normal, there were some things he wanted to do today, but if his friend was sick he would have to drop all of it to take care of her.

"Well, I wanted to go to some places with you, but if your like this, maybe it would be better if I take you back to the church to rest"

The idea actually looked attractive at the moment to the Tokiwadai student, something like being cared for by this person was definably appealing, but... but...if she withdrew here...after her secret crush invited her somewhere with him...

"No, idiot! Listen, I told you I'm fine, so I can go with you...um, if you want." Her voice was getting firmer, trying to get build adrenaline to override her emotions.

"But..."

"Idiot! For the last time, I'm one-hundred percent fine! So take me with you!" She tried stamping her foot down for emphasis.

Kamijou Touma carefully tried to piece together the thought process of this electric esper, when she got like this there was no stopping her, and when this happened he only had two options, either to retreat which was impossible scenario, or to give in with a sigh.

"Erm, I guess I have no choice then...Alright if Misaka is that insistent, let's go together"

"That's right" Mikoto inwardly smiled as she felt she had won a personal victory, but somehow it bugged her how he said that. "Wait a second, when did it suddenly become me that wanted to go with you!?"

"Hmmm, you don't want to?" the boy spoke half concerned.

"Well... it's not like I mind or anything" Misaka gave soft embarrassed tone.

"I see, well then, thanks in advance Biri-biri, I'll be relying on you"

"Um, relying on me?" even ignoring the use of that unwanted nickname, that was a weird way to put it.

"Of course, since my English isn't very good I'll be counting on you for translations and stuff"

...

Translating. The girl was in disbelief, this whole ordeal was because the idiot just needed someone to translate for him coupled with a misunderstanding on her part, her emotions were hurdled rapidly from one end of the spectrum to the other by this oblivious moron, she wasn't even sure if her body could take the blunt of what her feelings had gone though.

"Misaka, what's wrong? Are you sure your not sick"

"You...you...you... IDIOT!"

* * *

The two teens of Misaka Mikoto and Kamijou Touma trudged though the streets, the atmosphere was a bit awkward, not mention that Touma felt that some of his hairs might have been singed from an earlier burst of lightning, Imagine Breaker or not his reaction speed still had it's limits if the girl kept continuously trying to shock him.

"Biri-biri, although it's a bit late now but the people of this country aren't used to stray bursts of lighting bolts so you might want to keep it to a minimum, why were you even trying to shock me anyway?"

"S-s-shut up!" with her frustration threating to take hold of her Misaka scolded the older male. "That thing was defiantly your fault! No doubt you deserved it! If you can't figure out the reason by yourself your a hopeless idiot!"

Touma tried contemplating any of his past actions, were there anything he might of done or said to aggravate the Railgun? Nope, nothing came to mind that would warrant a shock that was capable of crippling a person several times over, either way his instincts told him to try and offer a bribe later as an apology even if he didn't know what it was for.

"Right, right, hopeless idiot Kamijou-san is sorry and will reflect on his actions" the boy put up one of his hands in an apology gesture.

"Well as long as you understand I guess it's fine then" she was unsure if he was sincere or mocking her.

Prolonging this topic wouldn't get them anywhere, taking the words at face value, the older teen was a relieved for the moment.

While not perfect, the tension in the air was down to amiable. Despite having several friendships with many different women this was something he couldn't get used to, no, rather it was something he didn't want to get used to. Facing down the wrath of a supposed ally, even if the approach was passive aggressive was still troubling.

Anyway provided that nothing went above average on the disaster scale, this small trip should still turn out with more positives than negatives, even the misfortunate could get a free day away from trouble once in a while.

On a relevant topic, have you ever heard about a thing called Karma? Summarily it's more or less a belief that if you do good things, positive things happen to you, yet the laws of the universe were probably laughing at it as it as it once again decided to disprove it with the help of the Imagine Breaker .

A sudden thump resounded through the air.

"Ahh! Again? What is it this time!" cursing his fate, the boy started spun around trying to dislodge whatever had fallen on him.

Touma was once again victim to the fate that he dubbed misfortune, this time in the shape of being hit on the head by whatever had fallen on from him from above. Well since this is the age post indoor plumbing, the oldest cliché scenario had been avoided, instead what had fallen on appeared to be a black blob, oh, it appeared to be moving as well.

Faced with this sudden situation, the level five's first instinct in a sudden unknown hostile situation like this was of course to bring off her signature electricity, adjusting it to an appropriate level she took aim at the thing that was on the high-schoolers shoulder.

"Wait! Stop! You'll get me too!" Touma shouted holding his right hand out while trying to dislodge the strange thing on his back with left.

"It won't work on you anyway, now hold still!" The girl gave a quick unhesitated reply.

"Aah!" The boy let out a soft yell witch had more to do with the thing on his shoulder moving uncomfortable on him rather the lighting strike he was anticipating, yet for some reason the zapping never came, was there a last second change of heart?

"Huh?"

"Ohh, I see," The electromater lowered her hand and the sparks of electricy began to fade, as she observed what was on the misfortunate boy now "Well, nevermind then I'm pretty sure it's harmless"

"Harmless? Biri-biri what is it?

"It's just a cat of course"

"A cat?"

The mysterious assailant indeed appeared to be an animal that resembled the common household pet which was now nestling on the area around the misfortunate boy's neck.

"Nyaaa" came the cry of the small feline, its black fur slightly puffed up as it began to apparently chew off Touma's hair or more accurately the pieces of food that was still trapped in there.

"Why did a cat randomly fall on me?" The boy sighed lowering the tension he felt and reconfiguring his position to try and remove the extra baggage on his shoulder with his left hand.

"Its probably the smell of the meal that got stuck in your hair earlier, either that or that old rumour about black cats' bad luck caused it to sense you"

"Hmm, really? Well it that case, before Kamijou Touma's already considerable misfortune a superstition like that is powerless comparatively" The cat moved just beyond the boy's grabbing range as it circled that person's head.

Mikoto sighed, there was no proper way responded to a statement like that, but back to the problem at hand she looked at the small black creature's face.

"You know, it's actually kind of cute" the girl murmured, her vision was drawn into the cat's head which was bobbing up and down trying to eat the boy's trademark spikey hair.

"Ahh? Misaka?"

"Shhh! Quiet a moment." The electromaster slowly approached closer. "Now don't move"

"Urr...Oookay?" The spikey haired boy had a basic idea of with the level 5 esper wanted to do but would this work out nicely?

The girl crept towards the cat on the boy's shoulder, and tried gaining its attention by making a soft cooing noise to try to gain its attention and approval to possibly touch it.

Supressing his urge to comment on this new weird site Touma did as he was instructed, yet he couldn't help thinking if someone approached him this way, he would find it disturbing enough to make some weird excuse and leave and then try to leave the vicinity, apparently the feline was off the same opinion as it jumped off the boy's shoulder distanced himself for about five metres.

"Ah, he really seems to dislike you"

"Hmmmph, I can see that, you don't have to say it!" With her objective failed the girl crossed her arms and pointed her face away, apparently the gesture was supposed to say something of the lines of 'fine! I didn't care anyway'.

"I see... so Biri-biri likes cats?" Touma simply stated.

"Yes, I like them, it's in vain though," the electromaster spoke while shuffling her feet. "You know about it right, My body gives off a weak magnetic f..."

Suddenly, an idea stuck the level five's head, something so obvious that she wondered how she had ignored the possibility until now.

"You, quickly! Do that thing!" Misaka shouted to the confusing the male while making some wild gestures with her hands.

"Uhh? What?" While Touma wasn't familiar enough with any type of sign language to get disconcern the message, nevermind how erratic the motions were.

"Your power...your negating thing, I need to use you to use your Imagine Breaker on me quickly!"

"Oh, Okay then?" Kamijou hesitantly raised his right arm and placed his hand upon the girl's auburn hair.

"W-w-wait, it doesn't have to be on my head does it?" In her haste the electromaster had forgotten what using the negating power entails, but the sudden skin contact quickly brought it out of her as well as a light blush.

"Eh? Oh, sorry, it was just confusing there for a moment and..."

"No, I didn't mean it like that but I..." Misaka stammered and averted her gaze away back to the feline silently watching the pair. "Err, just quickly grab my shoulder or arm or something!"

The misfortunate boy shrugged at the request and resigned himself to holding her upper arm with a sigh.

"G-g-goood! Now don't let go!"

The Railgun had several unusual feelings in her body as she felt the sensation of the boy touching her bare skin, but turning towards the cat that had dismissed her earlier she had to push all those feelings aside for now, this was a rare chance to approach a cat without her magnetic field getting in the way.

With her powers temporarily sealed, the girl slowly moved forwards like an amateurish predator sneaking up on it's first prey, dragging the misfortunate boy along for the ride. Touma was half sure the animal would flee on the spot at this unusual sight, surely it's instincts would run wild if some weird person like this suddenly tried to approach it.

However despite the Imagine Breaker's expectation the cat sat in place, it's curiosity and the smell of the lingering meat persuaded it to remain there watching.

Mikoto approached a lot more louder than she had hoped, she was dragging another person along after all, taking small calculated steps to reach the cat without scaring it off, as she got closer she extended her hand towards the animal's face.

Slowing stretching out her fingers, closer...further, how close would she get before the animal bolted away from her? No one was more surprised than Misaka herself when she was actually able to make contact, while at the end of the hand the feline was lightly sniffing her fingers, Misaka couldn't believe this spur of the moment idea actually worked.

Deciding to make the most of the opening she made a quick lunge trying to bring the animal into her grasp, as for the result, it was a success for the moment. In that brief moment the feline had been caught off guard and fell victim to the level five's embrace.

The spikey haired boy was amused watching the electromaster's expressions as the girl coddled the small animal, he was pleasantly surprised that Biri-Biri could even make these kind of faces, so much so, that he almost accidently released his right hand from the girl's arm but thankfully averted due to survival instinct.

The sight was almost heart-warming if wasn't for the withering the cat made trying to escape through frustration, clearly not aspirating being captured and smothered by a random person off the street. If wasn't long before the animals flexibility won out and allowed it to escape it's captors grasp.

The small black cat ran out of sight without even a passing glance and disappeared after it turned around a corner of a nearby building.

"Ahh, it ran away..." the girl lamented as she watched the small creature leave.

"Well it can't be helped since you were squeezing it to hard"

"Hmmph, it's not like I can do this everyday so it's forgivable that I make a mistake or two" although the level five said that, she felt satisfied, she could still feel how the soft fur felt between her fingers, and while on the subject of unusual feelings...

"By the way, h-how long do you plan to hold onto me like this?" the girl gestured to the boy's power negating hand which still had her upper arm within it's grasp, the Railgun felt that it might be over stimulating if this continued, well that and not being able to freely use lighting felt a bit awkward.

"Eh? Oh, right, sorry" Touma relaxed his grip and let go quickly.

The girl fidgety brushed her arm where she was held on just earlier, after completing this action she nodded her head and faced the person next to her.

"Well, anyway, I guess I'll have to thank you at least,"

"Hehe, Biri-biri is actually being humble"

"What? Your just...ah..." the sentence ended prematurely as Misaka did not know what to call him. "Tell me, you don't have some weird fetish like enjoying being electrocuted do you?"

"Ergh? Come on Misaka, like anybody would actually enjoy being electrocuted to death"

"I really wonder about that sometimes"

Touma let out a small laugh, convinced it was light joke. The sentiment was not shared.

"So...I'm guessing it's not one of those powers you can conveniently turn off, right?" The Imagine Breaker tried turning back to the original topic.

"Obviously"

"Ahh, I guess, no other option then but trying harder, you know, put enough effort into it and overcome the whole thing entirely"

"Listen, it's not one of those problems that can be solved with just effort alone"

"Sure it is, you just have to give it that extra push"

The unfortunate boy did his best to promote his idealist views, in turn the Railgun inwardly sighed.

"Okay, I'll play along, so then what should I do then?"

"Err...well..." The high schooler scratched his spikey hair, it was really hard to come up with a decent suggestion when put on the spot. "Let's see...how about running around a back alley covered in catnip, uh, no...then how about... um...Oh, how about a cat café?"

"A cat café?"

"Yeah, they exist you know, those small restaurants where you can pet as many cats as you want"

"Well...it's not that I never considered going to a place like that, but, well, my with my esper powers and all, you can probably figure how that is going to turn out"

"I see, in that case the obvious solution would be if I were to come along right, so how about it? If it's for something like that I wouldn't mind going with you."

"Eh? M-me with y-y-you?"

"Yup, shouldn't be a problem right?"

To Mikoto the offer seemed almost to good to pass up, normally her passive abilities wouldn't allow her to enjoy such a place however with her electricity sealed off like this it just might be possible. The thought was definitely alluring to the middle-school girl, to be surrounded by the small furry animals that before avoided her existence, coupled with going to a café with the boy she had a secret crush on, there was even an already built in excuse for body contact for an extra bonus, the only way it would be even better was if Gekota, the frog based character she adored, was there as well.

"I'll go," the girl stated. "I'll definitely go, j-just..just make sure you come with me alright, ah... just so you know, I'm only making you come because I need you! Eh? No! I mean I need your... powers...yeah, just your powers"

"Sure, sure, I can't really refuse since I offered right? When we go back to Academy City we can go together to a cat café sometime, then it's a promise. okay?"

The girl thought that kind of thing wasn't worthwhile to make a promise from just that but nonetheless...

"Right, it's a promise. I'll be looking forward to it so you better not disappoint me"


	5. Chapter 5

If someone was remotely familiar with the level 5s in Academy City were to be asked what the defining personality of the fifth ranked Mental Out was, the answer would most likely be paranoid, for someone ranked among the top of the empowered espers the average city resident would have trouble even imagining a threat that could ever oppose the omnipotent level 5s.

It was thoughts like these that Shokuhou Misaki found very irksome, if these people knew what lied behind that innocent face of their beloved city it would be enough to make them cringe just to walk down a back alley. It couldn't be helped, what was actually perfectly reasonable precautions looked like more than a slight case of paranoia from the perspective of the ignorant masses.

To live in Academy City, a place that advertised to be able to empower people with abilities beyond common sense, the peak of humanities potential seemed more like a time bomb that go off at any time.

It was almost amusing seeing the population so eager to try and yearn to become one of the legendary level 5s completely unknowing about any of the risks going with it yet alone be prepared to have any countermeasures ready at all.

For the so called "overly suspicious" Mental Out still had a fall back measure, a little something that she thought she would never use but was put in as a "just in case" scenario. After such a troublesome incident happened yesterday, she would normally cut her losses from directly engaging the enemy, subtly planning suggestions into the law enforcement to go after the opposition in her steed. None the less, this time was different, Shokuhou Misaki needed to see this event to its conclusion.

The Queen of Tokiwadai was playing with her new toy, a tracking feature that she managed to plant on one of her adversaries of that night or more accurately inserted into her, several hundred near microscopic tracking beads, made by Academy City's hidden research labs, amazing what one could fit inside say... a syringe. On the current settings, exactly every fours hours the beads would emit a special radio wave that could be picked up.

Employing this device to actually track down someone was a first for the girl, if there was normally a person worthy enough that she would need these measures in the first place the girl would rather repurpose the device more to evade the individual entirely.

* * *

It was an aggravating day. Something the mages unanimously felt wasn't helped by the frequency of their unwanted guests. A near daily event of what was supposed to be a very rare occurrence was not something they expected to happen. It didn't take an idiot to figure they were being tracked in some way, still the problem was how. Magic was very versatile and could probably solve this problem if they applied it, the problem was that they didn't know the how they were suppose to use it. Their group, like the majority of mages, were slightly lacking knowledge in technology use, unable to figure the exact method their enemy was utilizing to track them they were unable to perfect a complete counter against it until they figured more knowledge about it.

The magic users admitted to themselves that it was a mistake to be as overconfident as they were beforehand, from the results that came about denial wasn't something they could afford to have. Putting a little more effort into their security was a given, some extra sensor spells, unable to be detected unless the one was familiar with magic, was a given, in any threat approached the area the prior warning the magic sent out was enough for the magic users to prepare before their pursuer arrived.

This technique had proven a vital asset as the spell sounded the alarm bells within the mages' heads. The spell was worth all the effort it was to put up, sensing the arrival of enemies in the immediate area closing in on their position.

It was once again time to release their secret technique, their superior mobility and the small agile group, the infamous dubbed tactic known as "Strategic Retreat". Utilizing their speed, the high performance technique of packing up their camp and leaping out of the window was executed. Running away as its finest, with their supplies and all with them and without leaving a trace, the enemy didn't even get a glimpse of them as they left the area undiscovered,

Avoiding confrontation right now was a necessity, though lacking in numbers the small group of magicians made it up with mobility, their team of four was able to leave the area within a minute after sensing an enemy. They just needed to relocate their temporary base to another location, something they planned to do regularly anyway, however not this frequently as they were doing lately.

The mages did not properly possess the resources to come out uninjured if they were forced into a battle with an unknown adversary, even if they won, the odds were that the damages they would sustain would be enough to fatally cripple their mission. That said, the game of "hide and seek" wasn't their ideal image of success either.

Having to relocate everytime the were discovered was hindering their progress, It wasn't enough to put their plan in jeopardy, far from it, but time was certainly wasted and more importantly it was an annoyance, though recklessly attacking their pursuers without a plan would amount to suicide.

The situation would have to remain as if for now. As much as they would like to counter attack they had too little information about their enemies, a successful ambush against such an enemy relied on prior knowledge of their abilities at least for a chance at victory, but as soon as they got that knowledge things would have to change soon.

* * *

"Is there something bothering you?"

That phrase had become common lately, almost to the level where one might be sick of it. Trying to disguise her worries had become futile as of late.

To be more specific, Kuroko Shirai had be more stressed than normal lately, ever since the rumors of several kidnapping incidents started appearing, it wasn't the case itself that was causing the young woman to worry but the something else with it that sowed the seed of uneasiness inside her, it was alongside the kidnapping problem her roommate, her onee-sama, her beloved goddess had suddenly decided to take a sudden leave of absence. Sure, on her phone logs there was a message from Misaka informing her she wouldn't be around for a while.

It was a nice gesture, it just wasn't enough to stay her mind. It was just an ambiguously worded text message after all.

Misaka Mikoto had temporarily disappeared from the daily life of the Judgment teleporter, without even any forewarning, all she had was a simple goodbye and her Onee-sama was gone before she even had the chance to beg her to take her Kuroko with her. The travesty of it of all, denial was the first stage when it happened, the girl became despondent to the outside world, barely answering the calls of her classmates.

It wasn't as if the all powerful electric esper could ever be kidnapped herself though, she was far above such concerns, but still she couldn't completely squelch the tiny bit of doubt in her mind. It really was something that this just had to happen at the same time as kidnappers had to coincidentally show up.

With the proper conditions, the message itself could after all been forged or perhaps her Onee-sama had dropped her phone while kicking one of Academy City's infamous vending machines causing some deviant to pick up the device and decide to pull such a vile prank.

Not to mention there was always the most miniscule of chance... No...

It was ridiculous, a stupid thought that was not even worth considering, an impossible scenario with chances less than 0.01% of anything being remotely possible...the whole idea was laughable...ridiculous...stupid...and yet...

The young Judgment member had felt a small foreboding feeling on the edge of her consciousness, it wasn't as if the girl believed that such a crazy possibility was possible, but still, if the was even an atom sized possibility it concerned her beloved electric esper it was irritating enough to gnaw at her piece of mind, this troublesome feeling that wouldn't go away until the teleporter had over 500% certainty that the incident in no way involved her roommate.

"It's probably just the stress from not seeing Onee-sama for a few days" the young girl softly muttered to herself. "Yeah, a small little worry just because she hasn't contacted me in a while doesn't mean anything...but still...why hasn't Onee-sama contacted me though, kind of weird isn't it?"

Kuroko took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down, she was fully aware how this would turn out if she continued with her thought train, whittling down her own nerves was not something she needed in the immediate future.

The teleporter tried to forcefully clear her mind, calming herself down, deep long breaths and convincing herself with logic how such a thing could never occur in reality. The method worked well enough, in a few seconds her face was the picture of serenity, an aura of grace could be felt surrounding her, so much so that one would hardly notice her hands betraying her expression as they were fumbling through her pockets for her phone.

"It is just to be sure, were friends, friends have the right to worry about each other, just a little friendly check up, that is all it is." the girl softly whispered to herself as she finished scavenge herself for small communication device.

It didn't take more than a second before the teleporter had the phone to her ear, in a moment she would hear her precious, oh so wonderful Onee-sama's voice scolding her harshly for calling for such a stupid reason, the bliss of being reprimanded was sure to eliminate even the more annoying insecurities planted within her heart...if the only the voice on the phone didn't inform her that the recipients phone was not currently in service that it.

"Hehehe" the sound of Kuroko Shirai lightly laughing to herself. "Oh well, it was a good effort, besides this doesn't prove anything at all, it's probably Onee-sama turned off her phone because of bad connectivity of something trivial like that"

Sweat, perspiration, the teleporter ignored all the small droplets of moisture that was rapidly sprouting from her skin, it was all well and good, all she had to do was type out a message asking her goddess of lightning to call her back as soon as she had the chance.

That was enough, the young girl immediately felt relief after pressing the button sending the message on its way, fully confident that it would be answered within a day. Really, that was all it took to relieve the fatigue away, ridding herself from the stress was simply such a divine feeling, so much so that the girl just had to do it again... and another once more, and then maybe another time, such a blissful feeling, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to be categorized as a newly discovered peak of therapy.

* * *

he morale among the small magic group was nowhere near as high as it could be, this chase seemed to amount to no more than a game of hide and seek but for now this would have to do.

Results were still techniquely successful abeit not at the quickly as she hoped it would be but there was little that could be done to improve it at the moment, a direct assault would probably end in failure by being overwhelmed by enemy numbers, traps and deceptions were okay now and again but looking at long term they were losing to much resources to set those up. The mage's enemies full numbers were unknown to the group so for now they would have to assume they have unlimited amount of human resources.

Utilizing their speed advantage over their adversarie's larger yet slower group by simply fleeing whenever the enemy got close enough was fine as results go, but still, this whole situation didn't give the magic user in a good mood, personally the mage Mizar favored a more direct approach rather than a hit and run tactic even if it was a suicidal move. The only thing stopping her was the knowledge that consequences and risk far outweighed what they stood to gain.

At this rate the magic users needed some miraculous strategy to fully counter the enemy force, with the way this mission was going it would likely turn into a battle of information. A small hit on the enemy's weak point was all they need to either eliminate them or remove them completely, or course the reverse was entirely possible as well.

For now the magician group had decided have to give information retrieval a higher priority.

The first objective before raiding a building was scouting, easy enough, merely near basic magic. Some well placed sensor spells was already enough to full several books worth of information about the city, Academy City security was so inexperienced dealing with magic that one would almost think it was a trap with how trivial it was to spy on them, it wasn't as if the science side had any of the counter spells to stop them or any instruments that could even detect magic.

Searching the possible blind spots, the rate people came and left, the number of stairs leading up to the next floor, all the information at the convenience of magic spell.

The citizens of their sworn enemy of Academy City sure were lax or was it some twisted form of arrogance, this was the opinion once the magic users first discovered the city wide curfew that this so called "Judgment" had to abide by, empowering a large group of people only to put the restraints their on them at night, did they really have that much faith that their technology backed up with only basic law enforcement was enough to deal with threats. Not that they were complaining however, something like a curfew could certainly help say a kidnapper who knew how to work it to their advantage.

But for the moment, that potential would have to wait, there was an objective more important to accomplish here, namely stealthily infiltrate the building, obtaining all possible information about her pursuers and compromise any data on their small mage group. If it all goes precisely as planned it would be done before daybreak and nobody would be ever the wiser.

* * *

The electric user was staring at the screen, the hesitation caused her to hover her finger over the button. A slight sense of guilt, knowing how her roommate would feel it she knew where she was or rather who she was with, well, it wasn't as if she planned to inform the teleporter about her latest exploits anyway, it was better that way, for both of them.

Even procrastination had it's limits. The phrase echod in her head Misaka Mikoto stared at the screen of her phone, or to be more specific the long list of missed calls and messages left by her roommate. It didn't take living it the same room with that person to pick up that she had some...troublesome traits, but from the looks of things that girl had broken her record for the sheer amount of notes that been sent to her to the electric esper's phone.

Misaka had been hoping to avoid as much communication with her roommate as possible or at least put it off until her trip was over. Needless to say, if she made the slightest slip up leading to her borderline stalker detecting a hint of where the level five was and more importantly who she was with, safe to say nobody would like to be within distance of the outcome.

The image of her roommate in her mind, the Railgun had hoped to restrict their communications to mostly messages, the perverted teleporter was oddly perceptive at times, well as a member of "Judgment" she had ought to be, still the point was that the Level 5 wasn't entirely confident she could keep all the extra details of her little trip hidden if put on the spot, messages could reviewed but one mistake here could trigger a lot of unwanted complications.

Well judging how erratic her roommate was by the rate of mail in her phone it was probably something more than an usual report of her delusions of her "Onee-sama"... probably. The Tokiwaai Ace knew that she was more or less avoiding her junior's calls more than usual but with this situation it couldn't be helped. It couldn't be helped, it looked like calling her was inevitable, if the messages were this persistent it was almost certain it was important.

Taking a deep breath to calm herself and mentally brace from the unknown, and then all it took was a simple press of a button on here phone.

"ONEE-SAMA!"

...Of course...

The effect was immediate, before what could barely pass as the first ring could finish, the incoming cry that could startle the average middle-schooler ringed in the ears of the receiver.

"Ahh! Kuroko!? What!?" the Tokiwadai Ace panicked a reply before another sound could be fired.

"Ah...eh...Onee-sama..." the voice was suddenly mumbling over the phone as if the teleporter was unsure of how to proceed. "Ahem, Onee-sama you err...your calling because you saw my message on your phone, correct?"

"Of course, it's not like I can ignore when a friend is telling me to call them like that, so tell me what is going on?"

"Well Onee-sama, this is a very delicate situation, I just want to make sure of something"

"Okay, I'm listening" the level five could feel some of her muscles tense at the anticipation. Her roommate was certainly...erratic, more than usual at any rate.

"Onee-sama" Kuroko Shirai's voice calmly came through. "Remember when you said we should get matching lace underwear, did you say wanted them in black or white?"

It was as if time was momentary stunned for Misaka Mikoto. A new power unlocked through the strength of disbelief... not quite.

"...eh?"

"Did you want our underwe..."

"Kuroko!? Not that! I mean! What the!?" the older girl felt a sudden jolt of frustration that words right now wasn't enough to express it. "I definitely don't remember doing anything remotely like that and doubt I ever will! Don't tell me you arranged this whole thing just to do a weird joke!"

The third rank level five yelled defiantly over the phone, continuing until she hit the human limitation of breathing to hear a sigh of relief in return.

"Ah, that's my Onee-sama that I love and adore," by the tone of the voice alone it seemed the teleporter had seemed the teleporter had ignored her protests. "Oh, that was just a small joke I did on a whim, just to make sure that your not an imposter or something like that"

"What? A test on a whim? Is there really a situation where you need to do that or is that an attempt as an excuse?"

"Ahaha, though I am ashamed to say it, it just seems I guess the extra Judgment work lately has made me a bit paranoid"

"Well these things happen now and then I suppose, though try to take a break if you can, working yourself up that much won't help anybody."

"I'll keep that in mind, But more importantly Onee-sama there is a question that Kuroko has been holding in for a long time now"

The level 5 let out a sigh, she knew what was coming next.

"Onee-sama! Where are you!"

Just as expected.

"Onee-sama, the message you sent me only had eleven words on it, "I'll be gone for a while, please take care of it", even for your loyal and trusted herald, to receive such a message out of the blue like that and nothing else of course even Kuroko would be tense with that little information."

The voice proceeded to speak in a rushed tone. Was her friend hyper-ventilating? No probably not. Moving on, calming the erratic teleporter down seemed right.

"Ah, was that how it was, I could have sworn I out more into that message, listen I was in a bit of a rush when I typed that thing, I guess I might have glossed over the fine details, sorry"

The level 5 tried to calm her roommate through persuasion and a little reasoning.

"I guess it's fine as things go, since it's Onee-sama I'm sure there was a valid reason if you had to do it that way, more importantly, where are you Onee-sama?"

"Well..." the electric girl slightly hesitated. "I'm somewhere in England apparently"

"Onee-sama? You left the country without telling Kuroko?"

"Errr, it was really sudden, you know, something came up, ummm, Academy City needed a level 5 there so I was there and I had to go in a hurry"

"Oh, is that what happened?" Shirai replied with hollow cheerfulness. "Well these things would happen, since Onee-sama's mere presence gives out such radiance it can't be helped that everybody would want your guidance"

"Yeah, something like that, anyway more or less it's a secret classified thing so I can't really go over details right now." The older girl slighted hesitated "So ummm, how has things been for you lately"

"Well in one way in looks that I am going to be fairly busy for a while, a new situation turned up recently and I have to admit I've fairly curious about it"

"Hmmmm, by the way this situation, did it have anything to do with your messages earlier?"

"Eh, well not really that was a different matter actually, how can I put this?" the teleporter . "A Judgment and Anti-Skill situation got me a little worked up and I might have overacted abit"

"Eh? Was it something that had to do with me?"

"It's more like Kuroko was just worried, since you weren't around I thought something might have happened, but it's in the end it was just needless worry."

"Hey, if you wouldn't mind, could you spare me a few details, when you put it like that I can't help but get a little curious over it"

"Well, I guess a basic outline wouldn't hurt" "Let's see, well to begin with a sudden rise of missing persons reports have skyrocketed recently, from the reports it appears they share the location of around School Gardens and the surrounding areas, judging from the frequency it is safe to assume that this is probably a series of kidnappings rather than the possibility of simply getting lost"

"As a result that's why you sent me those messages earlier?"

"Well we don't have anything conclusive that is definitely a serial kidnapping , it's going to be treated as much soon anyway, from the looks of it, it will probably be changed to strictly an Anti-skill matter without involvement from Judgment. Well that's the general gist of it anyway"

From the sound of it the Railgun thought that assigning the event to Anti-Skill was reasonable, something as big as a wide kidnapping wouldn't be assigned to a student oriented task force, not openly at least.

"As for me, I'm not really personally involved in it, so Kuroko doesn't know much else other than that, does that satisfy you enough Onee-sama?"

"Ah, I see, well thanks alot," Misaka let out a sound of a mixture of relief and annoyance "Just to make sure, you said your not involved in this thing right?"

"It appear's so, to be honest, right now I unfortunately have time to investigate the case even if I wanted to, my workload has increased lately and the branch is going through some reorganization you see"

* * *

The morning weather today was simply radiant, by normal standards a day like this one had far surpassed the feeling of being bright and cheerful, however located by a certain Judgment branch, a small group of onlookers seemed to not share the sentiment.

If one would like the classify the general emotion of the group "happiness" would definitely not be chosen, "sadness" would be slightly closer but would still be incorrect, more accurately the feeling would be more closer to a mixture of "aghast", "frustration" and "worry".

Standing in front of the group, or this case not standing at all, was what was once was the proud 177th branch reduced to what was akin to a ruins. The building which had become a part of their everyday life, had vanished in an instant with the slightest warning.

This wasn't natural, something sturdy, fully maintained and built with the technology of the most advanced city in the world was not something so fragile that it would succumb to just a simple collapse. A average accident, even one caused by an esper, wasn't something that could eradicate the building so cleanly.

At first glance the most probable suspect was a random thug over confident with his power taking some weird drug, it was often enough that in Academy City that some low-life gets a little power boost and develops a god complex, the self proclaimed "invincible" or something like that. If this was the case the reason would be similar to giving the middle finger to authority, declaring themselves above the law so to speak.

The next likely scenario was that this was some form of revenge, maybe a group of Skill-Out lashing out armed with a grudge but only had the intelligence to manage petty vandalism as a form of vengeance.

Well this was all based on surface appearances for now, it was hard to believe someone would intentionally do something so reckless, to go as far to incur the wrath of Judgment was not a wise decision for any law breaker.

if it was simple thievery there were much simpler places to be looted, it wasn't as if student run system was offered any specialized equipment compared to the latest ground-breaking technology scattered all over the city.

At any rate the possibilities were endless, without any further evidence to make a basis on, there was no telling if any of these scenarios were anywhere close to the real truth.

Regardless the reality before them was a scene of destruction and mayhem, all the terror of war was fully preserved and condensed into the small area of wreckage, or at least that was the impression it left onto the onlookers.

For the lighter side, there didn't seem to be any casualties, no loss or life or injuries had been confirmed as of yet.

Sorting through the rubble and debris wasn't what Uiharu Kazari pictured she would be doing this morning, in fact she had expected a completely mundane day, going through an average yet fulfilling daily adventure of school, work and spending time with her friends, sure a problem might arise or two however she expected more along the lines of her skirt being flipped or supporting her fellow Judgment members.

However it wasn't long before fate had erased her easy going smile she had worn only a few hours ago.

Dust, slabs of concrete, pipes, girders, those objects fashioned as they had just appeared from a war zone surrounded her. The young girl right now was sorting through the remains of building trying to anything surviving the wreckage, as far as it was known it appeared there were actually no casualties, therefore the incident was currently classified as an act of vandalism only.

The level 1 girl was just randomly moving the wreckage about, right now she and several and her colleagues were also seeking for clues among the rubble, getting any worthwhile items that could be saved, making a record of what they discovered and looking for any signs of the perpetrator, as a representative of the 177th branch of Judgment, this was something she had to do.

Utilizing the latest technology to scan the area and perform the basic analysis, soon this first task would be over and she would be temporarily be reassigned to work at another branch until building could be restored to a acceptable standard again.

Her thoughts passed over the mystery instigator of this destruction, truly an enemy that should be brought to justice, but that was for later, right now she had to seal her feelings of wrath, as long as nobody was in immediate peril recovering and stabilizing her branch's resources took precedence, this was the best way she could aid her allies, especially a certain level 4 esper who wasn't the type of person to take things passively.

The whereabouts of her fellow Judgment member and friend currently alluded her, earlier claiming she had something to do and vanishing away before anyone could deny her, come to think of it that had been a while ago and her friend had still had yet to return, not that it was surprising though. It was just a feeling but without any evidence, esper power or messages, Uiharu knew her friend well enough to hazard guess what she was up too.

Not that the dark haired girl was actually surprised, she already suspected that her friend would probably keep her phone off for a while if she was doing anything resembling near what her friend thought she would do in this situation.

It was all well and good that knowing her friend was all for the law, justice and protection of the community, but if only there wasn't that habit of taking things to the extremes.

Really, making your friends stress with worry whenever the teleporter did something like this, and in the end the worry is almost always unnecessary, which the level 4 always seemed to emphasize, accomplishing her goals with a grin of victory.

And meanwhile all the level 1 girl could do contribute right now was weave through this debris. Stuck with this menial chore now that her technical equipment had ceased to function.

Speaking of which, more than a few of Shirai's personal belongings appeared to have survived the incident, hopefully the spatial movement esper would be back soon to pick them up if she had the chance... but it was fairly obvious that the teleporter wouldn't be coming back anytime soon.

As expected, dialling her number, messages through text, failure to communicate. There was the option to just wait and try again later, whenever later was. It would be nice if her friend made it back before her belongings were shipped and stored in some desolate room in a random Judgment building somewhere.

No choice then, scrolling through her list of contacts she directed her thoughts to the roommate of the person she couldn't reach, a certain electric esper who shared the same living space, it gave her a slight sense of guilt interrupting her the older girl's daily life, but the sooner the items were returned to their rightful owner the better.

Dialing the number of her friend Misaka Mikoto, she hoped the older girl wasn't busy with some other task that required neglecting her phone.

Her momentary concerns proved false however as the phone was answered by the fifth ring accompanied with a earnest greeting.

"I wanted to ask if Misaka-san wasn't too busy today, you could drop by and pick up something for Shirai-san since I can't get a hold of her right now."

"Ummm, that's kind of impossible right now," Mikoto slowly answered. "I'm on leave from Academy City right now, errm, didn't Kuroko tell you?"

Uiharu adjusted her flower head band as she recalled Shirai's actions the past few days, it was true that she sensed that something might be troubling her colleague, she was almost non responsive and they didn't have a chance to ask about it before this incident came up,

"Umm, no, not that I can remember anyway, we have been so busy with duty lately so we didn't have much of chance to talk lately... But on leave huh? How did that happen"

"Well it's a long story, I'll tell you another time, right now I'm stuck in England, I'll pick you up a souvenir, want anything in particular?"

"Hmmm, well..if I have the chance can I think about it?." the small voice came to a short pause, "Can I come back to you on that later, if I can salvage a working computer I can find out look up something quickly"

"Err, did you mention something about salvaging something?"

"Yeah, you heard about it from Shirai-san before right?" a bit of a nervousness crept into the voice. "A few things Shirai-san's possessions survived the rubble so I thought I could return it to her"

The electric esper felt something off, the words "salvaging" and "rubble" weren't exactly the type of descriptions she wanted associated with here friend.

"Errr, I'm sorry I might have heard something a bit off, what's this about rubble and surviving, did something happen I wasn't aware of?"

"Um, was it perhaps something I wasn't supposed to say?" Uiharu felt a cold sweat creeping on her neck, this was never a good sign, an instinct developed through the job was telling her to be careful about her next words.

"Something happened didn't it?" There voice came calmly yet cold after a slight pause, it was amazing how that small pause of silence could contain such a big ominous aura.

"Err, well maybe, a small thing, hardly worth mentioning at all...probably" the Judgment girl hoped perhaps it wasn't to late to feign obliviousness.

"Probably? I see... Is that so...?"

Uiharu almost wanted to bite her tongue, she knew her friends enough to see enough how this would turn out, with the only other option prolonging the inevitable, Uiharu figured that there was no helping it and had no choice but tell Misaka everything she wanted to hear.

"Okay, I get the general picture, so tell me what's everybody on the branch doing now?"

It did not take more than a few minutes if explaining before the older girl had the general idea down.

"Let's see, if I remember right Konori-sempai is delegating with higher ups, Shirai-san said something about an errand she had to do and would be back shortly and Saten-san is helping me dig through the rubble."

''Hm, you say Kuroko left on an errand, do you know anything specific? Knowing her, she might have run ahead herself tracking this mystery vandal."

''Well to be honest, I thought that as well, she's done pretty similar things before after all. But even if she did she should be able to handle the situation herself."

The 3rd ranked level five furrowed her eyebrows in contemplation, it was true enough, her roommate was known to be more than capable dealing single-handedly with the typical crisis that occur in Academy City, with her level 4 teleporting ability Kuroko was versatile enough to handle almost any situation and if not could leave the location within the blink of an eye.

It wasn't as if the she had no faith in the younger's girls abilities, she really did believe in her more than anyone, it was just her reckless habit of charging head first into situations like these, a little bit of paranoia for her friend should be justified enough.

Well doing anything right now would probably be overacting, her friend was smart enough to know what she was doing, it was probably the frustration on not being told earlier about the incident from Kuroko when she called before more than anything. Forcing herself to calm down, Misaka Mikoto resolved to push her frustrations down, at least until she reunited with her beloved roommate when she got back to Academy City.


End file.
